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THE NOTE-BOOK 
OF AN ATTACHE 




MR. MYRON T. HERRICK 



£ wt**~ 



The Note Book 
Of An Attache 

Seven Months in the War Zone 



By Eric Fisher Wood 




With Illustrations from Photographs 



A. L. BURT COMPANY 
Publishers New York 

Published by Arrangements with The Century Company 



3\440 



Copyright, 1015, by 
THE CENTURY CO. 



Published, June, igi$ 



7 

APR 23 W** 

ACCI8U0NS WVIWOH 



FOREWORD 

When the war-storm suddenly loomed over 
Europe at the end of July, 19 14, I was 
quietly studying architecture in the Ecole des 
Beaux-Arts at Paris. When Austria-Hungary 
declared war on Serbia on July 24th, the atmos- 
phere of the city became so surcharged with 
excitement that to persist in study was difficult. 
Within a week I myself had been swept into the 
vortex of rushing events, from which I did not 
emerge until seven months later. 

I became Attache at the American Embassy in 
Paris under the regime of Mr. Herrick, and as 
such lived through the first exciting months of 
the great war. During the months of September, 
October, and November, I made four different 
trips to the front, covering territory which ex- 
tended along the battle-line from Vitry-le-Francois 
in the east to a point near Dunkirk in the west. 
I saw parts of the battles of the Marne and the 
Aisne, and the struggle for Calais. 

v 



FOREWORD 

The months of December and January I spent 
as a bearer of special dispatches between the 
American Embassies and went several times to 
France, England, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, 
Austria, and Hungary. I have seen French, 
British, Belgian, and German troops in action. 
I have seen French, Swiss, Dutch, German, 
Austrian, and Hungarian troops in manoeuvres. 
I spent the first week of February in Paris, leaving 
there for America on February loth. 

The following account of what I saw and heard 
is compiled from letters and diaries which I 
wrote day by day on the spot. Some of my 
experiences have had to be omitted for diplomatic 
reasons, and it has been necessary, in some cases, 
to give information without mentioning my au- 
thority. The higher the rank and the greater 
the reputation of my informant, the less right 
have I to mention his name. 

Although my personal sympathies are with the 
French, I tried to observe dispassionately and 
accurately, and have scrupulously aimed to 
present my facts uncolored by preference or 
prejudice. In war, exaggeration and misrepre- 
sentation play an accepted part in the tactics of 

vi 



FOREWORD 

belligerents, but it should be the aim of a neutral 
to observe with an unbiased mind, no matter 
what the state of his emotions may be. Otherwise, 
the data he collects can have no value as historical 
material. 



vn 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

i. — At the American Embassy . . 3 

n. — The Germans nearing Paris . . 42 

hi. — With the British Army. The Night 

before the battle of the marne 68 



iv. — The Battle of the Marne 

v. — Analysis of the Battle of the 
Marne ..... 



vi. — The Battle of the Aisne 

vii. — The American Ambulance 

viii. — Germany and Berlin 

ix. — Carrying Dispatches from Berlin 
to London .... 

x. — Vienna 

xi. — Hungary 

xn. — A German Prison-Camp 

Appendix 



82 

126 
153 
174 
203 

234 
247 
256 
288 

303 



THE NOTE-BOOK 
OF AN ATTACHE 



THE NOTE-BOOK 
OF AN ATTACHE 



CHAPTER I 

AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

Paris, Tuesday, August 4th. I presented myself 
at the American Embassy today and offered my 
services to Mr. Herrick. They were promptly 
accepted. I was put to work with such suddenness 
that no time was spent in determining my official 
status. I cannot say whether I am a doorman or 
an Attache. At present the duties of the two seem 
to be identical. 

Now, as in 1870, the German Embassy in 
leaving France turned over its affairs and the 
interests of German subjects remaining in France 
to the American Ambassador. When I arrived 
today the Chancellerie presented an astounding 
sight. Around the outer door were huddled a 

3 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

compact crowd of Germans, men and women; 
they pressed about the entrance; they glanced 
furtively over their shoulders and their blue eyes 
were filled with dumb apprehension. Inside the 
Chancellerie was chaos. Hundreds of Americans 
and Germans crowded together seeking audience 
and counsel. German women sank down in 
corners of the halls or on the stairs, weeping for 
joy to have found a haven of refuge. Scores of 
Sovereign American Citizens stood in the busiest 
spots and protested with American vehemence 
against fate and chance. Each S. A. C. was remon- 
strating about a separate grievance. Most of them 
reiterated from time to time their sovereignty, and 
announced to no one in particular that it was their 
right to see ' ' their Ambassador ' ' in person. They 
demanded information! They needed money! 
They wished to know what to do with letters of 
credit ! What was "the government " going to do 
about sending them home? Was Paris safe? Would 
there be immediate attacks by Zeppelins? Could 
they deposit their jewels in the Embassy vaults? 
Were passports necessary? WHY were passports 
necessary? They asked the same questions over 
and over, and never listened to the answers. 

4 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

Inspired by Mr. Herrick, the staff of the Em- 
bassy struggled bravely and coolly through this 
maelstrom, and accomplished as many things as 
possible each minute. No fifty men could have 
gone through with all the work that suddenly 
demanded attention. Without warning, virtually 
within one day, this great flood of humanity had 
rolled in upon the normally tranquil life of the 
Embassy, and yet its chief and his assistants took 
up the vast responsibility as quietly and acted as 
coolly as though it were all an everyday occurrence 
and not the emergency of a lifetime. 

I was first assigned to work with the American 
problems. William Iselin, who had been one of my 
fellow-students in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, is 
Attache at the Embassy and he gave me a rapid 
summary of necessary information. I plunged 
into work with eagerness, but while attending to 
my own countrymen, my deepest personal sym- 
pathies went out to the mob of panic-stricken 
Germans. Poor creatures, they are in no way 
personally responsible for the war, and yet they 
bear no mean part in the suffering it is causing. 
It was decreed by the Erench government that all 
Germans who had not left Paris within twenty- 

5 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

four hours after the order of mobilization would 
on no condition be permitted to leave thereafter. 
Many of them had found it absolutely impossible 
to depart in time owing to the difficulty of obtain- 
ing money and to the disarrangement of the railway 
service caused by the mobilization of troops. The 
second day of mobilization, August 3d, caught them 
like rats in a trap and exposed them to the doubtful 
fate of being lost in an enemy's country during 
war time. Many of them were travelers who had 
been vacationing in the chateau country, visiting 
the cathedrals of Normandy, or enjoying the 
picturesque country of Brittany. Last week they 
were everywhere treated with respect and polite- 
ness, today they are looked upon with suspicion 
and hostility. They are hungry and they have 
no money. They are surrounded by looks of 
hatred and they are terror-stricken. No French- 
man but fears to be seen speaking to them. They 
have no place to sleep as no hotel or lodging-house 
dares harbor them. Many of them have lost all 
their worldly goods and possess nothing except the 
clothes in which they stand. Nearly all of them 
carried their funds in letters of credit on German 

banks and these are now worthless in France. 

6 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

There are refined women who have slept in the 
streets and parks, nay, who have not been allowed 
to sleep, but have walked all night in their patent 
leather pumps. There are rich men who literally 
have not an available copper and whose eyes have 
taken on the nervous look of hunted animals. 
They realize that neither their sound reputation 
nor abundant wealth will alter their present 
condition by even one "petit pain de cinq cen- 
times." One man who carried bank-books and 
deeds showing that he owned property to the 
amount of several hundred thousand francs had 
walked twelve miles to reach the Embassy, because 
he did not possess the coppers necessary to pay 
his carfare in a public conveyance. 

Yesterday war was declared between France 
and Germany. One realizes how quickly it 
has come when in the American mail yester- 
day morning a copy of the New York Times 
dated only ten days ago devoted just a column 
and a quarter to the subject of possible fric- 
tion between Austria and Serbia. When that 
newspaper left New York the whole world was at 
peace, but while it was crossing the ocean war 
has overwhelmed all Europe, and now when it 

7 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

reaches Paris twenty million men are rushing to 
arms. 

Today peace-loving France realizes that she is 
attacked by a powerful and ambitious enemy. 
Today no man in all la Patrie regrets the sacrifices 
which he has made to maintain an army capable 
of defending his country; no man but gives fer- 
vent thanks to Heaven that he has been forced to 
pay taxes to support that army; no man regrets 
those three years of his life which he and each of 
his fellow-countrymen offered up in order that its 
number might not diminish, for now that army 
stands READY to prevent the ruin of his property, 
of his nation, of his women. It is Ready! At this 
moment — what a wonderful word! In modern 
wars little is of use which has not been prepared 
beforehand. Weeks only are necessary to ruin 
untrained and ill-armed forces, while years are 
needed to train an army and to manufacture 
arms. The victories of today are not won by 
Bravery armed with a rifle, but by Science sup- 
plemented by many complicated instruments. 

Every hour of every day presents new sights 
or experiences unique in kind and all speaking 
dramatically of war. Each such sight is a surprise 

8 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

more vivid than the preceding one. Every day is 
a succession of startling novelties, each of which 
gives one a tingling shock. We are living so 
rapidly that some are benumbed, others intoxi- 
cated by the rush of events. 

In the shops the prices of food staples have 
nearly doubled. The people are all anxious to lay 
in a little supply of provisions against sudden 
famine conditions, and the merchants are holding 
them up for all the traffic will bear. Articles that 
will keep indefinitely, such as flour, chocolate, 
dried fruits, potatoes, coffee, and preserved meats, 
are most in demand. Owing to the hand-to-mouth 
buying methods of the French, Paris is never 
more than three days ahead of famine. No one 
realizes this better than the French themselves, 
and therefore each and every one desires to lay 
in at least a small supply of provisions. A tem- 
porary shortage has consequently already occurred. 

The newspapers have been emphatic in the de- 
nunciation of the merchants who, taking advan- 
tage of the national crisis, and making capital of 
the fear and need of the populace, have raised the 
prices of the necessaries of life, and have advised 
the people not to submit to the imposition. To- 

9 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

day the poorer classes have adopted the policy of 
smashing anything for which an unreasonable price 
is demanded. I heard a big, broad "femme du 
peuple" ask the corner grocer the price of some 
prunes, several bushels of which were exhibited 
in front of the store. The reply indicating a 
rise of some fifty per cent, in the price, the wo- 
man suddenly picked up the basket in her strong 
arms, and before the astonished grocer could in- 
terfere, threw the whole lot into the gutter. In- 
stantly a crowd collected which cheered the woman 
and jeered the grocer in so ugly a manner that he 
was thoroughly frightened. His confusion was 
made quite complete when a policeman arrived 
and declared that what the woman had done was 
well done. The results of this policy were im- 
mediately salutary and by this evening the shop- 
keepers of Paris are a very chastened lot, and 
prices are quite normal again. 

The eagerness with which newspapers are bought 
and read is noteworthy. Each succeeding ' ' extra ' ' 
is snapped up with unfailing alacrity. The usual 
procedure is now reversed, for the newsboy is no 
longer seen racing at the beck of some haughty 

customer, but continues on his lordly way and 

10 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

allows the would-be purchaser to rush to him, or 
even run down the streets after him. The great 
journals seem unable to turn out enough editions 
or to get them out fast enough to meet the demand. 
The authorities, however, evidently consider this 
continual hawking of sensational news unneces- 
sarily disturbing to the populace, and an ordinance 
is to be framed forbidding the crying of newspapers 
in the streets. 

The Tour Eiffel, that plaything of a decade ago, 
has in this war become of supreme importance. 
It is the highest "wireless mast" in the world and 
from it messages have been exchanged with 
Washington, D.C. Its value as a sending station 
cannot be over-estimated. Russia may become 
isolated; indeed she is already virtually shut off 
by the curtain of hostile Germany and Austria- 
Hungary, stretching from the North Sea and the 
Baltic to the Adriatic. It is probable that wireless 
messages sent and received by the Tour Eiffel 
will soon be the only means of rapid communica- 
tion between France and Russia. Fears for the 
safety of the tower have led to the most extra- 
ordinary precautions for its protection. It is 

assiduously guarded against the attack of spies 

ii 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

by numerous sentries. Anti-aircraft guns are 
mounted upon its various stages to protect it 
against aeroplanes and Zeppelins, and heavy 
barbed-wire entanglements are to be built all 
around it. 

A curfew regulation is now in force in Paris. 
No one is allowed in the streets after eight o'clock. 
Whoever is found out later than that hour is 
promptly conducted to his domicile by the first 
policeman he meets. 

I received a cablegram tonight explaining that 
there is at the moment no means of forwarding 
money from New York to Paris. This makes 
my financial situation awkward, as I now have 
only three hundred francs. The worst of it is 
that one cannot even resort to the expedient of 
borrowing, because all one's friends are suffering 
a like stringency. 

Today is, officially, the "third day of mobiliza- 
tion." From now on France will live not by 
calendar, but by mobilization, days. One speaks 
not of "Sunday, August 2d," but of the "first 
day of mobilization." Neither days of the week 
nor of the month exist any longer. All government 
decrees, railroad schedules, and military orders are 

12 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

dated by the new era. Events follow a schedule 
which has long since been prepared. When 
mobilization is announced the nation turns away 
from its everyday life and from the world's calen- 
dar, and starts a carefully rehearsed set of opera- 
tions executed according to an arbitrary schedule. 
One dimly remembers that if it were "peace 
time" today would be Tuesday. 

One sees everywhere on the sidewalk little 
knots of people talking in low, troubled voices, 
and each time just as their conversation is well 
started they are interrupted by a policeman who 
reminds them that it is not permitted to s'at- 
trouper in the streets and that they must move 
on. 

Everywhere one sees speeding taxicabs, each 
containing a young soldier, his family, and two 
or three bundles. The young man usually wears 
a brand new uniform. The women of the family 
are invariably weeping quietly as if to say: "I 
cannot help crying, because I am a woman, but 
everything is all right and just as it should be!" 
When the father is of the party, he has a calm 
face and sits beside his son with his arm around 
the son's shoulders, and always the taxi speeds 

13 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACH^ 

madly, so that each time one gets only the most 
fleeting glimpse of the family within. 

There are very few soldiers left in Paris, — not a 
fifth as many as usual ; those that one does see are 
most of them driving heavily-loaded army wagons 
and appear most disgusted with the unheroic ser- 
vice. Auto-busses have completely disappeared 
from the streets, and this is a great inconvenience ; 
they are all at Versailles being converted into meat 
wagons or ambulances. All the fast private auto- 
mobiles are requisitioned for the army, and one 
sees them tearing along vying in speed with the 
flying taxis, each one driven by a sapper with 
another sapper in the footman's place, while one 
or two officers sit calmly behind, trying to smoke 
cigarettes in spite of the wind. 

There are persistent rumors throughout Paris 
of battles "near Metz" or "on the borders of Lux- 
embourg," of "two hundred and thirty thousand 
French troops already in Alsace," "ten thousand 
French killed at Belfort, " or "forty thousand 
German prisoners taken." 

The papers already announce a series of German 
depredations across the border into the ten kilo- 
meter strip of country between it and the French 

14 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

armies. It is reported that German foragers are 
infesting this strip, carrying off everything of value. 
Yesterday morning the papers printed the first 
"war story," which recounts how a patrol of 
Uhlans penetrating some ten kilometers into 
French territory were halted by a French sentinel, 
a soldier nineteen years old. The German in 
command, thinking the sentinel was alone, shot 
him through the head and was himself in turn 
immediately shot dead by the boy's comrades, who 
had been hidden near by in an improvised guard- 
house. The papers also announced that the presi- 
dent of the League of French Patriots in Alsace had 
been arrested and shot. These stories and others 
like them, coupled with the official report of the 
violation of Luxembourg and of the sending of 
a German ultimatum to Belgium, have intensely 
excited the French. 

Until yesterday the people of Paris have been 
forbearing with such German subjects as are in 
the city. When these stories began to circulate 
certain elements of the population took prompt 
and drastic action against the German-owned 
shops of the city. During the day many such 
shops have been wrecked. The milk trust of 

15 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Paris which sells "le Bon Lait Maggi" is popularly 
supposed to be owned by German capital. Its 
shops are in every quarter of the city, one might 
almost say on every street. They have today 
been the first objects of attack. One of these shops 

is in the Rue , not far from my apartment. I 

saw it wrecked this afternoon. There was no 
excitement, no hurry, no shouting. A crowd 
collected, apparently without concerted action, 
but as if by common impulse. There was no 
prearrangement or system about it and no 
"French" excitement. Most of the raiders were 
women. There was some jesting, and some dry 
wit, but mostly it was serious business. 

The work of wrecking was carried forward 
painstakingly and thoroughly. The iron screen 
over the show-window was torn off and broken up 
and the window itself was smashed to bits, the 
door was broken open, every bit of glass or crockery 
was shivered to fragments against the sidewalk 
and the pieces were ground into powder under the 
heels of the raiders. Account books and bill- 
heads were torn sheet by sheet into the tiniest 
bits and strewn up and down the street for a 
block, and all woodwork was smashed into 

16 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

kindling. During the operations a patrol of police- 
men on bicycles went tearing by. They must 
have been on business of great and immediate 
importance since they had no time to stop nor to 
look either to the right or left. When the wreck- 
ing operations were quite completed another patrol 
came by. The sergeant in command dismounted. 
He wore a tremendous frown and with an author- 
itative sweep of his arm cried: "Qu'est ce que 
vous faites? Allez! Allez vous en! vous savez 
bien que nous sommes maintenant sous la loi 
militaire, et que c'est defendu de s'attrouper dans 
les rues ! Allez ! Allez I " (" What are you doing ? 
Move along, get out of here ! You know that we 
are now under martial law and that it is forbid- 
den to collect in crowds in the streets. Move on, 
move on!"). 

The crowd instantly dispersed, wearing faces of 
great solemnity. It is evident that he could not 
possibly have arrested the wreckers, for he had 
himself seen nothing and it is not to be supposed 
that they would have been witnesses against one 
another. 

By night time there were many shops, factories, 
and cafes of German ownership which had thus 

17 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

been raided. The crowds did not always take 
time to make careful investigation before breaking 
up an establishment. I shall never forget the 
plight of the French proprietor of a cafe on the 
Place de T Opera who was standing in front of his 
completely wrecked shop using all the most elo- 
quent French gestures, as he repeated over and 
over in helpless rage: "Sacre nom d'un nom, je 
suis caporal du cent-dixieme de reserve et je pars 
au front apres demain!" ("Sacred Name, I am 
Corporal of the noth Reserve and I leave for the 
front the day after tomorrow.") 

Last evening I repeatedly heard the following 
conversation between Frenchmen, wherever they 
met: 

ist Frenchman: "Est-ce qu'on va boire du 
'Bon Lait Maggi,' ce soir?" 

2d Frenchman (with the solemnity of an 
owl): "Non, Monsieur!" 

This formula of question and reply had travelled 
all over the city and was repeated time after time 
with always the same internal relish. 

On all sides of Paris speedy aeroplanes and 
daring aviators hold themselves ready to dash 
upon any enemy who may approach by way of 

18 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

the air and, if necessary, fall with him to mutual 
destruction. All night the beams of searchlights 
comb the sky for invaders and cast a tragic re- 
flected glow upon the city beneath. 

Wednesday, August $ih. Yesterday an all too 
enterprising individual chartered one of the fast 
little Seine boats, always so beplastered with "Du- 
bonnet" advertisements, which ply along the river 
between the Quai du Louvre and St. Cloud. He 
announced that since it was now no longer possible 
to reach London via the train to Havre, he would 
transport Americans on his little boat to England, 
going down the Seine past Rouen and across the 
Channel. For such service each person was to be 
charged an extravagant amount, payment strictly 
in advance. The scheme was widely advertised 
to have the approval of the American Ambassador, 
although no one at the Embassy knew anything 
about the matter until Americans came to the 
Chancellerie yesterday to ask for further informa- 
tion. Mr. Herrick sent me out to investigate. 
The promoter had evidently calculated that the 
Ambassador would not hear about it until too late 
to interfere. 

19 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

I found the whole proposition most impractical 
The boat was far too small for so dangerous a trip, 
there were no accommodations for so long a voyage, 
and the question of food supplies was a very serious 
one. Moreover, numerous and incalculable diffi- 
culties were involved in passing through a country 
in a state of war. 

Upon receiving the detailed report on the objec- 
tions to the scheme, Mr. Herrick promptly sent to 
the Paris papers a statement that his alleged con- 
nection with or approval of the plan was a mis- 
take. Notices to the same effect were also posted 
in the halls of the Embassy. 

This morning the crowd of Germans who 
thronged to the Embassy was greatly increased, 
while the number of Americans was approximately 
the same as yesterday; consequently several of 
the staff were transferred from work with Amer- 
icans to work with Germans, I being among them. 
It is strenuous business handling these panic- 
stricken people. Heretofore, the offices' for the 
naval and military attaches have been located on 
the ground floor of the Chancellerie, but in the 
present emergency this space is converted into an 
impromptu German Embassy, all German affairs 

20 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

being concentrated here, while the Americans are 
taken care of on the floor above. We are stationed 
two by two at desks ranged along the walls of the 
entrance hall and we dispose of each case as rapidly 
as possible as they are passed to us by the doorman. 
All these Germans require four things: food, 
lodgings, protection, and proper police papers. 
We began by doling out to them from one to three 
francs each to be used to buy food. Our miser- 
liness was due to the fact that, under existing 
economic conditions, even the Embassy could ob- 
tain only a limited amount of change, and it was 
essential that we make that go as far as possible. 
In order to obtain at one and the same time lodging 
and protection for our wards, Mr. Herrick arranged 
with the French government that the Lycee 
Condorcet in the Rue du Havre be set aside for the 
lodgment of German subjects. This building is 
guarded by a squad of police who allow no one to 
enter who is not the bearer of a certificate issued 
by the American Embassy. The Lycee Condorcet 
is a great barn of a place, from which nearly all the 
furniture has been removed, but it provides for 
the moment the two essentials, a roof and safety. 
No owner of an hotel or apartment will in these 

21 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

dangerous days harbor Germans, in each of whom 
he sees a possible spy, and the government, sud- 
denly called upon to house thousands of aliens, 
responds to the appeal of the American Embassy 
as best it can. Hundreds of Germans will to- 
night sleep on the bare floor of the Lycee Condor cet, 
and be more thankful for that safe resting-place 
than ever they have been for the most comfortable 
bed or luxurious apartment. 

No attempt was today made to provide Germans 
with the necessary police papers. We had indeed 
no time to consider anything but food, shelter, and 
safety. Tomorrow we shall attack that problem. 

By three o'clock we had so systematized the 
work of handling the Germans that I found I could, 
with the aid of two assistants, attend to all the 
routine cases myself. This released the men at the 
other tables to reinforce the American office on 
the floor above, whose business had during the 
afternoon greatly increased. There was no means 
or time for estimating in advance just how many 
people could be crowded into the Lycee Condorcet, 
so I continued during the afternoon to issue certifi- 
cates of admission to all the Germans whom I ex- 
amined. On receiving their certificates most of 

22 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

them went at once to the Lycee to get off the streets. 
By six o'clock the place was so crowded that not 
another person could find room even to sit on the 
floor ; therefore the late arrivals, after having wearily 
trudged two long miles from the Embassy to the 
Lycee, had to trudge back again from the Lycee to 
the Embassy. By eight o'clock there were nearly 
a hundred of these refugees huddled around the 
Chancellerie and it was late in the evening before 
I, by most desperate efforts, succeeded in making 
arrangements for them for the night. 

The French police have promulgated a regula- 
tion that all Germans now in Paris are to be shut 
up in detention camps. They are ordered to re- 
port immediately to the nearest police station, 
where they will receive written notifications of the 
camps to which they have been assigned, and of 
the date of their departure. The detention camps 
are twelve in number and are located at Limoges, 
Gueret, Cahors, Libourne, Perigueux, Saintes, Le 
Blanc, La Roche- sur- Yon, Chateauroux, Saumur, 
Anger, and Flers. Several large trainloads will be 
shipped away from Paris each day for the next two 
weeks. Exceptions to this edict are to be made 
only in the case of Alsatians, and of those sick 

23 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Germans who are possessors of a certificate from 
some French physician stating that they are too 
ill to endure transportation. 

The frightened Germans find it difficult to under- 
stand the numerous details involved in this order, 
and are hopelessly confused by the various official 
papers they are required to obtain to safeguard 
them against the accusation of being spies. The 
Embassy endeavors to keep itself informed as to 
the latest police enactments, and these are clearly 
and courteously explained to all the Germans who 
apply to the Embassy for counsel or assistance. 

Sunday, August gth. During the past few 
days I have been absolutely absorbed with the 
affairs of the Germans. I am at present in charge 
of them and report results to the Second Secre- 
tary. I enter the Embassy before nine in the 
morning and it is after midnight before I leave 
its doors. None of the staff, not even Mr. Herrick 
himself, departs before that hour. If some of the 
peacefully sleeping Sovereign American Citizens 
who are so free with their criticisms during the 
daytime could see the members of the Embassy 
in the early hours of the morning at the end of 

24 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

our sixteen-hour day, they would perhaps pity 
themselves less. We work always at high pressure ; 
meals are hurriedly swallowed at odd moments 
and at irregular hours. Each night I walk home 
across Paris, down the Rue Freycinet, over the Pont 
de l'Alma, through the Avenue Bosquet, Avenue 
Duquesne, Rue Oudinot to the Rue d'Olivet — 
and sleep. It is a long walk when one is dead tired, 
but there are no public conveyances at night 
and, indeed, few in the daytime. The walk takes 
nearly an hour, even at a fast gait, for at short 
intervals one is halted by policemen demanding 
explanations of this midnight journey. Few ex- 
periences have been more weird than this nightly 
trip through the familiar Paris streets, strangely 
dark and absolutely deserted. 

Each day is now a haze of Germans and their 
troubles; of policemen, detectives, and soldiers, 
of tears and laughter, bits of the sublime and the 
ridiculous; of women who have been robbed and 
men who have been arrested as spies; of constant 
struggles to secure papers for poor hounded 
creatures, which one policeman demands and 
another refuses to grant ; of beaten faces and tear- 
stained cheeks; of French women endlessly beg- 

25 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

ging unobtainable news of sons lost in Germany, 
and of petty crookednesses on the part of those 
we are trying to help and protect. 

Affairs are, however, running more smoothly. 
We have found means to get small change in large 
quantities, and I now know personally most of 
the police officials who are concerned in German 
affairs. 

I have heard the Marseillaise sung upon hun- 
dreds of peaceful occasions ; have risen when it was 
played in French theaters; have enthusiastically 
joined in singing it at students' dinners, and have 
been impressed by it in an unemotional and aca- 
demic way. In peace times one feels that it is 
easily the greatest of national anthems, but fails 
to realize that it is primarily a battle song. This 
morning for the first time I heard it sung as such, 
and as such shall forever remember it. I was 
walking down the Rue de Sevres toward the Boule- 
vard Montparnasse, hoping to pick up a stray 
taxicab which would carry me to the Embassy. 
Suddenly, and with startling abruptness, I was 
brought to a full stop by a wave of sharp, staccato 
vocal sound. Wave beat upon wave, — a great 

26 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

volume of male voices shouting in unison. There 
was something so strange, so startling, and so 
appaling in their quality that, without com- 
prehending what was coming, a shiver ran up 
my spine. The sound swelled and came nearer, 
and suddenly the head of a column of infantry 
swung into view past a street corner just ahead 
and the dull "smash — smash — smash" of a thou- 
sand feet falling in unison could be heard through 
the volume of sound. It was the Marseillaise 
of war! The troops were marching to the Gare 
Montparnasse to entrain for the front, and in 
a few days would be in the battle-line. Their 
bayonets sloped backward, a waving thicket bent 
toward the morning sun. There was no music 
in their words, which were sharp and incisive. 
Each word was a threat, an imprecation, intense 
with ferocious meaning. Their intonation carried 
conviction that the men meant literally every 
impressive line they uttered. The words visual- 
ized for me the picture in their own minds. I 
could sense their desire to charge the Germans, to 
close in, to strike, to stab. Perhaps the deliberate, 
vengeful premeditation to destroy is more terrible 

than the act itself. I doubt if any battle could 

27 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

ever affect me as did the song of those men. The 
result was so disintegrating to one's psychology 
that for the rest of the day I completely lost 
balance of judgment. I felt exultantly certain 
that the French were going to smash Germany 
into tiny bits, and was equally sure that they could, 
if need be, demolish all creation. 

Monday, August loth. Today Austria and 
France are officially at war. The affairs of the 
Austro-Hungarian Embassy were turned over to 
us this evening. This probably means that a 
flood of Austrians and Hungarians will be to- 
morrow added to the Americans and Germans 
who already keep us so busy. 

Today for the first time we were able to complete 
all the business brought to the Embassy. Pre- 
viously we had to be content with accomplishing 
as much as could be done in a sixteen-hour day. 

Wednesday, August 12th. I have witnessed 
so much suffering during the last week that to 
see people weep now no longer produces any 
emotional effect upon me. One's sympathies get 
numbed by the over-strain put upon them; the 

28 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

more keenly one feels, the more numb one ulti- 
mately becomes. Today during the long day 
about five hundred Austrians and Hungarians 
poured in upon the Embassy. I examined one 
hundred and sixty-four cases between two o'clock 
and half-past four, and gave monetary assistance 
to one hundred and twenty-one. 

Friday, August 14th. During the past week 
six ten-dollar gold pieces which have been sent 
me in letters arrived safely. Snugly held in 
their pasteboard frames, they could not be de- 
tected by feeling the letters. When the first one 
arrived I had spent virtually all the money which 
I had on hand at the beginning of the war, and this 
good American gold will tide me over until drafts 
can be sent through to Paris. In New York in 
peace time sixty dollars seems a small amount, 
but in France in war three hundred francs in gold 
looks a small fortune. At least, it insures plenty 
of good food. 

Sunday, August 16th. Until today I have had 
at the Embassy no definite status. I have laugh- 
ingly been dubbed the "German Ambassador.'* 

29 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Everyone has been much too busy to give thought 
to anything so personal as position or titles. 
This morning, however, time was found to send 
my name to the Minister of Foreign Affairs as 
"Attache Civil a l'Ambassade Americaine," and 
to request the customary "coup fil." 

Monday, August ijth. I have at last received 
money from America. It came through Morgan, 
Harjes & Company. This firm has been the 
salvation of our countrymen in Paris. They 
announced that "until further notice" they would 
cash all American paper. They even take per- 
sonal checks on American banks. The "further 
notice," fortunately, shows no signs of appearing. 

Thursday, August 20th. The statue of Stras- 
bourg on the Place de la Concorde has been 
constantly hung with mourning wreaths and cr6pe 
ever since the capture and annexation of the city 
of Strasbourg by the Germans forty-four years 
ago. Now it is piled with gay flowers and be- 
decked with streamers and the arms of the lady 
are filled with flags, conspicuous among which are 
those of Great Britain and Russia. 

30 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

Friday, August 21st. Nearly all the Germans, 
Hungarians, and Austrians have by this time been 
interned in the detention camps ; all ages and both 
sexes have been shipped away to a fate of which 
we as yet have no knowledge. 

I have been arranging the details of an auto- 
mobile tour of inspection to the various camps, in 
order to investigate the prisons and to disburse to 
the prisoners the funds which have been received 
for their benefit from their various governments. 
Such a trip will necessitate nearly twelve hundred 
miles of travel and will require at least two weeks' 
time. 

Mr. Herrick sent for me today and questioned 
me as to the state of the preparations. He told 
me that he intended to select me to make the trip, 
and that I was to start as soon as the necessary per- 
missions had been received from the French Gov- 
ernment. Attache Herbert Hazeltine, who has been 
a fellow- worker in behalf of the Germans, is to take 
charge of the Paris office during my absence. 

Saturday, August 22d. German affairs are 
now reduced to a system. The Embassy each 
day opens to Americans at ten o'clock. I begin 

3i 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACH^ 

with my Germans and Austrians at nine in order 
to get clear of the least desirable element before 
the Americans appear. In that first hour we 
dispose of about fifty per cent. ; the half that need 
only routine assistance. At present I receive them 
in the entrance hall of the Embassy at the far end. 
I sit at the desk facing the door and have the 
money sent by the German Government for desti- 
tute cases on my left hand in a drawer against the 
wall. An Austrian, long resident in Paris, and 
president of the Austro-Hungarian Relief Society, 
is placed on my right to give me the benefit of his 
long experience in charity work. He already 
knows many of those who apply for aid and can 
judge whether or not they are really destitute. 
Beyond him is another assistant who fills out 
receipts for each sum distributed and obtains the 
signature of the recipient. Special appointments 
for the afternoon hours are made with those 
applicants who want information or help which 
cannot immediately be decided upon. 

The crowd outside the door, often several 
hundred in number, is kept in order by two 
policemen. Assistants hand out numbers like 
those used for the Paris auto-busses, not given 

32 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

however for priority, but for undesirability ; the 
least desirable getting in first so that we may be 
the sooner rid of them. These assistants also see 
that each applicant has the correct papers in his 
hand, and that three of them are waiting in line 
to facilitate the steady flow of the human current. 
The receipts and my entries form a double record 
and check to be used in the official accounts which 
are balanced every day and in the end will be trans- 
mitted in reports to the German and Austrian Gov- 
ernments. A stenographer keeps an indexed, 
alphabetical list of all the applicants, which enables 
me to find the past record of any case which reap- 
pears. In addition to this, I have a system of hiero- 
glyphics which I write in on the lower right-hand 
corner of the police papers which every foreigner 
must at all times carry with him for identification. 
There is also an interpreter for those rare comers 
who speak neither French nor English. By this 
system I have managed to examine as many as one 
hundred and thirty-five cases in an hour, and once 
as high a number as seven hundred in a single 
day. 

At the beginning of the war there were probably 
at least thirty thousand Germans and Austrians 
3 33 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

in or near Paris who became wards of the American 
Embassy when the affairs of the German and 
Austrian Embassies were turned over to us, all 
of them needing to be furnished with proper police 
papers and to be provided with a refuge until such 
time as they are shipped to detention camps in 
the south of France. 

Sunday, August 23d. Here in Paris, extra- 
ordinary as it may seem, we have had no real 
news of the progress of the war. The Official 
Communiques carry to a fine point the art of saying 
nothing of any importance. The newspapers are 
so strictly censored that they are permitted to 
publish little except these communiques or edi- 
torials based upon them. Letters and papers from 
America really give us the first accounts of events 
which are happening at our very gates. We 
know by rumor that there has been heavy fighting 
somewhere and somewhen. Many German pris- 
oners are being taken around Paris southward to 
the detention camps which I hope soon to visit, and 
the flags of three German regiments have been 
brought to Paris and exhibited with considerable 
ceremony. This should indicate that battles 

34 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

favorable to the French have been fought, since 
a German regiment numbers three thousand men 
and would defend its flag to the last. 

Of late one sees everywhere numbers of 
women in mourning, increasing so rapidly as to 
attract the attention of even the least observing. 
Paris still maintains a strange calm. The still- 
ness of the city is positively oppressive. Even 
the newsboys drag slowly along calling in a dis- 
heartened voice their wares which no longer con- 
tain any news and which, in consequence, find 
few buyers. 

The people seem to realize from the very lack of 
news that this is to be a long and terrible war 
and that any decisive result cannot be at present 
expected. 

Letters are constantly arriving at the Embassy, 
forwarded to us with great care by French soldiers 
who have found them on the bodies of dead Ger- 
mans, or received them from the hands of the dying. 
They are sent to us in the hope that we may even- 
tually find means to transmit them to Germany 
to the relatives of the dead for whom they were 
intended. Today came such a note written by a 
German airman who had been shot down out of the 

35 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

sky. He had evidently realized that his time was 
short and had hurriedly scribbled on the back of a 
sheet of instructions printed in German script the 
few words he could summon strength to write. 
The scrap of paper was torn and smudgy and a 
thumb-print in blood was impressed on one corner. 
Each word was more shaky and labored than the 
preceding one, as if each had been traced only by 
a supreme effort. On it was written in German, 
" Good-bye, Mother and Father. My leg is crushed. 
The French are very kind and ..." A 
foot-note had been added by some French soldier 
explaining that the man had died while he was 
writing, and giving the means of identification 
which had been found on the body. 

Monday, August 24th. Yesterday and this 
morning I have observed a very singular psycho- 
logical phenomenon. Neither yesterday nor today 
have the authorities given out any military news of 
importance and the papers have been as non- 
committal as usual, yet all Paris believes that the 
Allies have suffered a great and terrible defeat at 
a place in Belgium called Charleroi. The whole 
city is as if it were under a pall. Every face wears 

36 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

a fatalistic expression terrible to behold. I have 
read of such mysterious spreading of evil 
tidings, but have never before witnessed anything 
of the kind. It is a very curious manifestation, 
whether or not it proves to have any foundation 
in fact. 1 



The French find a superstitious encouragement 
in an acrostic which some ingenious journalist has 
constructed out of the names of the Commanders- 
in-Chief of the French and British armies. Here 
it is: 

JOF|FRE 

freTnch 



With Paris unlighted at night, it is an un- 
canny experience to walk through a great city 
which is absolutely dark. The Champs-Elysees is 
probably at present the darkest avenue on earth. 
All those monumental lamp-posts which used to 

1 The French and British armies suffered a crushing defeat at 
Charleroi on August 226.-22,6.. As a result they were driven 
back a distance of 1 50 miles and only succeeded in making a stand 
after they had reached a point southeast of Paris. 

37 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

stand like beacons in the midst of the stream of 
traffic now shine no more. The sun seldom rises 
without revealing the ruins of one of these lamps 
and of an automobile, the two having mutually de- 
stroyed each other in the darkness. We do not 
know why the city is left in gloom. The common 
interpretation is a necessity to save gas and coal. 

I do such a variety of things each day! This 
morning I managed to get away from the Embassy 
for an hour in one of the several automobiles 
which have been loaned to Attaches and which are 
driven by their American owners. During that 
time I arranged for the delivery of twenty thou- 
sand francs in small change which I shall take with 
me on my trip to the detention camps, ordered a 
lot of printing, and obtained fifteen hundred francs 
in change for tomorrow's crowd of German and 
Austrian indigents. I visited the editor of a news- 
paper and arranged for the correction of an article 
giving some misinformation about Embassy affairs, 
and then ended up by making a verbal report of 
the morning's work to Mr. Frazier. 

Tuesday, August 25th. The Military Governor 
of Paris is now invested with absolute and 

38 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

autocratic powers. He makes what regulations 
he chooses and is authorized to punish any in- 
fraction of his rule with the death penalty. He 
has taken advantage of his position to institute 
various reforms which have for years been much 
needed but which have hitherto been persistently 
blocked by "politics." He is no longer required to 
argue with bureaucracies or to convince legislatures. 
He acts without hindrance. He has thus, out of 
hand, settled some of the great problems with 
which Paris has been struggling for years. With 
a stroke of the pen, for instance, he has made it 
illegal to buy, sell, or possess absinthe. He is said 
to have destroyed the long menace of the Apache 
gangs by summarily shooting down all that could 
be found in Paris. He has by drastic measures 
suppressed gambling, and has even done away 
with the slot machines of chance which have so 
long stood in all the cafes to catch the hard-earned 
sous of the workmen. It is probable that these 
reforms will be permanent and will stand even 
when martial law in Paris is abolished. It is 
always difficult to accomplish a great reform, but it 
is often impossible to undo it once it is an accepted 
fact. If we had real prohibition in America and 

39 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Woman Suffrage, I hardly think that we should 
vote to have "whiskey" brought back or ever dis- 
franchise our women. 

Friday, August 28th. Public vehicles are now 
almost unobtainable. Taxicabs are to be secured 
only after much delay and at exorbitant prices. 
It has become more and more a waste of time 
for me to cross Paris on foot each morning and 
evening and to do much of my Embassy work 
at the same disadvantage. I have attempted to 
solve the difficulty by engaging by the week one 
of those archaic old horse chaises called nacres. 
London has placed a hansom in the British 
Museum with the other obsolete and historic 
styles of equipages, but frugal Paris has kept her 
out-of-date vehicles on exhibition in active use on 
the boulevards. These conveyances, so recently 
looked down upon for their slow pace as compared 
with the speed of taxis, are now restored to some- 
thing of their former prestige. 

The fiacre I have acquired is navigated by 

Paul, who has been a Paris cocker for thirty-five 

years, and its one-horse power is furnished by his 

faithful old horse Grisette. True to type, Paul 

40 



AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY 

is stout and jovial. He considers it a great honor 
to drive for a member of an Embassy and always sits 
up very straight on his box, for to come and go on 
missions concerning "les affaires des Etats-Unis" 
has imbued him with a great sense of dignity and 
importance. When waiting in front of the Embassy 
among the limousines he maintains a rigid and dig- 
nified position and insists that Grisette, for her part, 
shall hold up her head and stand on all four feet. 
Each noon Paul drives Hazeltine and myself 
down the nearly deserted Champs-Elysees for 
lunch at the Cafe Royal. We must make an 
absurd spectacle with so much dignity on the box 
and a total lack of it behind, for Hazeltine and I, 
relaxing from the strenuous work of the morning, 
lounge in the seat with our feet far out in front, 
as we discuss with great vehemence affairs con- 
nected with our Embassy work. The pleasure 
and pride which Paul experiences in his present 
"position" he shares with Grisette, with whom 
and of whom he speaks as if she were human. He 
perorates upon her manifold good qualities, usually 
ending with the statement that she is "bonne 
comme du bon pain," while Grisette modestly pre- 
tends that she does not hear herself thus praised. 

41 



CHAPTER II 

THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

Saturday, August 2Qth. Paris feels the oppres- 
sion of war more and more each day. There have 
been so many "morts pour la patrie" that every- 
where there are families who have been stricken 
by the loss of a member. This leaven of sorrow 
gives to the population as a whole a somber 
tone. 

Perfectly frightful stories of German barbarities 
are circulating. They are almost unbelievable, 
but seem to have some confirmation. 

Many of the wounded Frenchmen when re- 
turning from the front bring trophies of battle, 
such as German swords, bayonets, and buttons. 
The most prized possession of all is the German 
spiked helmet. Barring only the scalp of the 
American Indian, a more significant trophy could 
not be imagined. It is not only significant but 
gorgeously handsome. Moreover, it is every. 

42 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

where on earth accepted as the symbol of the 
Prussian militarism. 

Today Mr. Herrick sent an Attache with a fast 
automobile out toward Compiegne, which is thirty - 
eight miles from the Porte St. Denis. The man 
was not permitted to approach the town, but from 
hills on this side he could hear the constant 
rumble of heavy guns. He returned to Paris 
giving it as his opinion that a battle was being 
fought at Compiegne. This, however, is so im- 
probable that he can find no one to credit his 
report. The idea is really too preposterous! The 
truth might be that manoeuvres of the French 
army were in progress, or that the forts around 
Paris were practising. We have been warned 
that this might occur. The war was not declared 
four weeks ago; how then would it be possible 
for the Germans already to be at Compiegne? 
Before they could reach a point so near Paris they 
must first reduce the triple line of the French 
frontier fortifications, w T hich are the product 
of more than forty years of study and labor 
and form a greater barrier than any ocean. 
Even were these reduced, the Germans would 
have to beat back the French active army num- 

43 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

bering one and a half million men. Compiegne 
is no farther from Paris than Peekskill is from 
New York. 

Sunday j August joth. The rumors of evil 
which yesterday all refused to believe as absolutely 
incredible are today accepted as facts. No bad 
news has yet appeared in print, the censor having 
suppressed even the slightest hint of misfortune. 
This lack of any definite information has had 
a disintegrating effect upon the public morale. 
Since all official news is denied them, the people 
add to their previous personal anxiety a ghastly 
terror of the unknown, multiplied and intensified 
as it manifests itself in the masses, already in a 
high state of excitement. r 

1 1 have been informed by American officials on duty in Berlin 
that they have never observed any misstatement of fact, or any 
essential omission in the communiques of the German Govern- 
ment. This, during my brief visits within the borders of the 
Empire, was certainly borne out by my own experience. Defeats 
are announced as automatically as victories. An illustration of 
the advantageous effect of this procedure upon public morale 
and of the disadvantageous effect of the opposite occurred after 
the Battle of the Marne. The French, who should logically have 
gained the greatest encouragement, had so learned to distrust 
their official communiques, that they gained no advantage of 
this kind whatsoever, while the Germans, who ought to have 
received no moral stimulus from so material a disaster, under- 

44 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

Paris knows with a conviction that nothing can 
alter that the French armies have met defeat at 
all points along the line. They do not need dates, 
or names, or numbers; the one terrible fact that 
the Germans are again nearing the gates of Paris 
stands out with greater intensity because all 
details are withheld. 

The Bank of Paris has begun to move. I felt 
it was an historically memorable day when I stood 
this morning before its great doors and watched 
the nervous, hurrying messengers endlessly stream- 
ing in and out as they loaded a row of trucks with 
France's money bags. The bearers looked for all 
the world like a stream of ants carrying their 
larvas to safety when an ant-hill is broken open. 

It is commonly reported that the French 
Government is planning to flee from Paris. If 
that actually occurs the papers will doubtless 
announce it as a "strategic retreat." The mem- 
bers of the various Embassies are becoming 
frightfully nervous and most of them will prob- 
ably leave at the same time. 

went a fresh accroissetnent of their patriotic determination as 
a result of the frank announcement that the war was no longer 
going "according to specifications." 

45 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

At the American Chancellerie all goes on quite 
as usual, partly because we are so busy that there 
is no time to worry, but principally because Mr. 
Herrick is so calm and confident that he sets all 
the other members a compelling example. 

Early this afternoon it was reported at the 
Embassy that a German aeroplane had flown 
over Paris and had dropped several bombs, one 
of which had fallen near the St. Lazare Hospital. 
Mr. Herrick sent me out to investigate. I found 
that there had really been an aeroplane and that 
it had thrown three bombs, all of which had 
exploded. Many windows had been broken and 
one old woman had been killed. Few people, 
however, had actually seen the aeroplane. 

The censor allowed details of the affair to be 
published in the evening papers, including what 
purported to be a translation of a note dropped by 
the German, saying: "The German army is at the 
gates of Paris. Nothing remains for you but to 
surrender. — Lieutenant von Heidssen." This is 
an example of the inexplicable working of the 
censorship. The people tonight all seemed to 
believe that the German's note is authentic. 

The papers recently published an account of the 
46 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

arrival at a Paris hospital of a wounded Turco who 
had brought as trophy a German spiked helmet. 
The peculiar element reported was that the head 
was still in the helmet. I doubt the truth of this 
story. It is, however, another example of the ex- 
traordinary workings of the censor's mind. He 
suppresses every vestige of harmless war news on 
the plea that it might "assist the enemy," and 
then permits the publication of such a hate- 
breeding tale as this. 

Monday, August jist. Another German aero- 
plane flew over the city today and again threw 
bombs. It arrived at six in the evening. The 
psychological effect on Paris has been incalculable. 
Yesterday's Taube went virtually unobserved; 
it did not seem to need explanation, and its visit 
could be interpreted as a freakish exploit — the sol- 
itary one of its kind. The attack of another Taube 
today put an entirely different face upon the mat- 
ter. Nothing better could have been calculated to 
disquiet the French . They have always considered 
themselves kings of the air and have felt that, what- 
ever else might be found wanting, at least the French 
aviators would always rule that element. Today 

47 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

every soul in Paris saw the Taube. Until now 
anything about the Germans' approach has been 
rumor and hearsay, but now comes this plain 
fact for all the world to see; and what more 
convincing or spectacular evidence of their near- 
ness could be set before the Parisians than a 
German aeroplane flying over their heads? I 
think it will prove the spark to light one of the 
historical explosions of the French people, and 
that this will probably show itself in extreme panic 
conditions. 

Tuesday, September ist. Panic conditions of 
the most pronounced order exist today. Everyone 
seems possessed with the single idea of escaping 
from Paris. A million people must be madly 
trying to leave at the present moment. There are 
runs on all the banks. The streets are crowded 
with hurrying people whose faces wear expressions 
of nervous fright. The railroad stations are 
packed with tightly jammed mobs in which people 
and luggage form one inextricable, suffocating, 
hopeless jumble. 

Cabs are nearly unobtainable. When anyone is 
seen to alight from a vehicle, a flock of men and 

48 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

women instantly gather round it like vultures 
and there stand poised to see if the cabby is to be 
paid off. If the "fare " makes a motion toward his 
pocket, the mob piles into the carriage, sw r earing 
and scrambling. The matter is then arbitrated 
by the driver who accepts as client the one who 
offers the largest pourboire. In the Rue Condorcet 
today I saw such a dispute settled with a twenty - 
franc tip. One of the defeated candidates was a 
poor dejected woman who had fought like a 
tigress for the cab and had been ejected with con- 
siderable force. She now wept copiously and 
hopelessly. She explained that she had her 
baggage and three children to take to the station 
and that she had been endlessly trying to get a 
vehicle since the night before, and announced that 
this was the nine hundredth vehicle "qu'on m'a 
vole. " For one in her emergency I considered this 
an excusable exaggeration, so I lent her my cocker, 
Paul, and hurriedly went on foot to the Embassy. 
My faithful Paul does not desert me, even now 
when the streets run gold for cockers. Last even- 
ing an auto carried a family to Tours, returning 
this morning. For this it received 1500 francs. 
Thousands upon thousands of refugees from the 

49 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

north are fleeing across Paris by any and every 
means of transportation left in the city. 



Three days ago we doubted the possibility of a 
battle as near as Compiegne. Today already we 
feel it quite possible that the Germans will capture 
Paris, and that within a few days. It is almost 
certain that our Embassy will have a tremendous 
part to play in the capture, for Mr. Herrick will 
stay in Paris, come what may, unless Washington 
orders him to leave. It is probable that France 
will turn over to him her interests in Paris — one 
might almost say, the city itself. 

Another Taube came today and left the 
usual consignment of three bombs. The aviator 
arrived promptly at six, just as he did yesterday. 
I was amused to see two French policemen rush 
out of a cafe and fire their revolvers at the so-far- 
away speck. 

Wednesday, September 2d. The German bomb- 
dropping aeroplane arrives each day as regularly 
as sunset. It is considerate of him to come always 
at the same hour — six o'clock. One knows when 
to expect him and is thus able to be promptly on 

50 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

hand to watch the show. It was especially thrill- 
ing today. We all stood in the Rue Chaillot in 
front of the Chancellerie, and being on the side of 
the Trocadero Hill we enjoyed a good view off 
over the city. The Taube passed almost 
directly over our heads on its way to attack the 
Tour Eiffel; it flew at an altitude of about 5000 
feet and looked very like a bug crawling across the 
sky. With our glasses we could see the German 
aviator looking down at us, and could distinguish 
on the under side of each wing the black 
Maltese cross which all German aeroplanes carry 
as "uniform." 

Off to the east a French machine was slowly 
mounting above the housetops to give battle. 
The German sailed over the Tour Eiffel and 
dropped a bomb. We caught sight of it, a tiny 
speck floating downwards. After waiting what 
seemed an unreasonably long time, we heard the 
faint, muffled "boom" of its explosion. All this 
time, guns in various parts of the city were 
shooting at the aeroplane; it sounded like fire- 
crackers on the Fourth of July. There are anti- 
aircraft guns on the different platforms of the 
Tour Eiffel. These seemed to be rapid-fire guns 

5i 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

which spouted ten shots in about five seconds, 
and then, after taking a long breath, spouted 
another ten shots, and so on. The din 
was extraordinary, but the German aeroplane 
went serenely on as if utterly unconscious of 
the thousands of shots of which it was the 
target. 

After throwing his first bomb near the Tour 
Eiffel, the German described a graceful, sweeping 
curve off over the Ecole Militaire, and threw 
another bomb which struck the roof of a house in 
the Avenue Bosquet. He then turned northward 
and sailed off in triumph over Montmartre, 
apparently unscathed. The French machine had 
meanwhile reached about half the altitude 
at which the German was flying. The whole 
affair was extremely dramatic. All Paris stood 
open-mouthed in the streets, utterly oblivious to 
everything but the machine which was creeping 
across the sky. 

The French already take their daily Taube as 
much as a matter of course as their daily cafe. 
They cannot help exclaiming in admiration "quel 
aplomb ! " It is now the fourth day that a German 
aeroplane has passed over the French armies, 

5* 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

eluded the French machines, and braved a murder- 
ous fire from the waiting guns of Paris. 

The incidents have been marked by singularly 
ineffective shooting on both sides. The aeroplanes 
have thrown a dozen bombs; they have broken 
windows and roof slates and have killed one old 
woman. But this has been, as far as I know, the 
only casualty. On the other hand, the Taubes 
likewise have escaped un wrecked, in spite of the 
fact that enough ammunition has been expended 
against them to have smashed all the aeroplanes 
in the world. The psychological effect on the 
Parisians has been immense. 

For two weeks now, I have been entirely ready 
to start on my first tour of the detention camps. 
The need has seemed so pressing that I have been 
prepared to start immediately on the receipt of 
permission from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
Mr. Herrick rightly refuses to allow me to start 
without this permission. The reason for the delay 
seems to be that France insists that she will 
accord us only those privileges with regard to her 
German prisoners that the German government 
gives to the Spanish Embassy in Berlin with 
regard to the French prisoners in Germany. The 

53 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

hitch is that each takes exactly the same ground, 
so neither side does anything definite. 

Such is European "diplomacy." The onus of 
the prisoners' condition cannot be said to rest 
upon our shoulders. Mr. Herrick or Mr. Bliss has 
made demarches in the matter almost every day. 

Diplomacy is a trade which I find extremely hard 
to learn. Its principal rule seems to be never to 
do anything that you can possibly avoid. Such 
principles naturally give rise to a great deal of 
futile routine. When a diplomat must act, he 
methodically follows a well-trodden and known- 
to-be-safe path; when he is forced to take a new 
direction he invariably makes some superior take 
the responsibility. I know that on one occasion a 
trivial question was asked of a Jager at the door of 
a European Chancellerie; it was passed through 
eight people of increasing rank and finally reached 
the ruler of a great nation. I wonder if the appli- 
cant was kept waiting at the door by the Jager 
during the months necessary for the working out 
of the process. 

The Government of France has announced, 
officially, that it will depart from Paris tonight and 
that Bordeaux is to be the new capital. In point 

54 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

of fact, many officials have already gone, while 
those who still remain are to leave tonight on a 
series of diplomatic trains. The Embassies of 
England and Russia and the Legation of Belgium 
will go also. There is a rumor that several of the 
neutral ambassadors and consuls will flee, but this 
I cannot credit. They could have no sufficient 
excuse for deserting Paris so precipitately, and if 
they did they would appear arrant cowards. Mr. 
Herrick is sending Captain Pope, one of the mili- 
tary Attaches, and Mr. Sussdorf , the third secre- 
tary, to Bordeaux, in order that we may have 
some official representation with the French Gov- 
ernment in its temporary exile, but feels that the 
Embassy as a whole should stay in Paris. Bor- 
deaux is in the midst of the districts which contain 
the detention camps for German and Austrian pris- 
oners, and I therefore rather expected to be sent 
with Captain Pope and Mr. Sussdorf when I heard 
at noon that they were to leave for Bordeaux. 
Mr. Frazier, however, told me that I was to stay 
in Paris, work here being so pressing that the 
German prisoners will have to get on without me. 
I hurriedly turned over to Captain Pope much 
data I had collected concerning the camps and a 

55 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACH^ 

satchel containing twenty thousand francs in small 
change which I had in hand for distribution 
among the internes. 

Thursday », September 3d. Now that part of the 
Embassy corps has departed for Bordeaux, the fol- 
lowing remain at the Chancellerie to face the exciting 
events of an impending German invasion. Besides 
Mr. Herrick and the secretaries, Messrs. Bliss and 
Frazier, there are Majors Cosby, Hedekind, and 
Henry ; Captains Parker, Brinton, and Barker ; Lieu- 
tenants Donait, Hunnicutt, Boyd, and Greble, all of 
the United States Army; Major Roosevelt of the 
Marine Corps; Commander Bricker and Lieuten- 
ants Smith and Wilkinson of the Navy. Herbert 
Hazeltine, William Iselin, and myself are civil 
Attaches, and Harry Dodge and Lawrence Norton 
private secretaries to the Ambassador. The 
Treasurer, Mr. Beazle, was at the Embassy as 
long ago as the Franco-Prussian war and the 
Commune, and has already lived through one 
siege and capture of Paris. There are, of course, 
innumerable stenographers, bookkeepers, and the 
like. 

The other embassies and most of the consulates 
56 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

have fled. Their members have left Paris more 
precipitately and with less dignity than has been 
shown even by the civil population. They all 
seemed to lose their wits when the Germans drew 
near Paris; they made their preparations to depart 
in the most frantic haste ; they were white of face 
and perspiring with nervousness. It is not a 
pleasant sight to see strong men palsied with 
fright, but we have seen many such these days. 
Not a soul remains in the British Embassy or con- 
sulate to take care of England's manifold interests. 
It seems strange that when thousands of British 
heroes of the army are dying brave deaths on the 
fields of battle, not a single British hero was to 
be found in the diplomatic corps with nerve enough 
to risk the inconveniences of a siege. The Am- 
bassador of another country, who fled with the 
crowd, left in spite of orders from his king ab- 
solutely directing him to remain. Apparently he 
has sacrificed his career to his fright, for this king 
was so determined that his embassy at least should 
remain in Paris that he has replaced this ambassa- 
dor by another who has more courage, — the new 
one is a soldier. 

These fleeing diplomats insult France by assum- 
57 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

ing that she is already conquered, and insult the 
Germans by assuming that the lives of the ac- 
credited plenipotentiaries of foreign nations would 
not be safe in the hands of German soldiers. They 
also leave their own subjects in Paris without a 
soul to represent them at a moment when they 
really need a representative for the first time in 
decades. When these magnates have recomposed 
their minds in Bordeaux and have time to formu- 
late excuses, they will probably say that they 
left Paris because it was their solemn duty to 
accompany the French Government; but yester- 
day, when they were asked why they were depart- 
ing so swiftly, they could only cry: "The Germans 
are coming. " 

Mr. Herrick looks on with calm amazement. 
Three days ago he telegraphed Washington to ask 
for authorization to stay in Paris. The reply 
left the matter to his own discretion. Thirty 
minutes later he was in the cabinet of M. Delcasse 
to say that he would stay in Paris no matter what 
might come. It must have been a wonderful 
tableau when those two men faced each other 
across M. Delcasse' s big desk. As Mr. Herrick 
stated that the American Embassy was positively 

58 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

to remain in Paris, M. Delcasse's expression of 
calm dignity vanished in a flash. He stepped 
around his desk and shook Mr. Herrick eagerly 
by the hand. He said there were many precious 
memorials and many rare objects which might 
have their habitation in one spot like Paris, but 
which nevertheless belonged to all civilized hu- 
manity, and that no diplomat could perform a 
greater service to France and to mankind than 
to stay in Paris and do what could be done 
to protect these precious memorials and objects 
from destruction — a destruction which might be 
avoided if an authorized spokesman of that 
humanity were present to protest. 

The stampede out of Paris grows hour by hour. 
It is a contagion and seizes all classes. A week ago 
it was a short street indeed which did not boast 
at least one Red Cross Hospital; now most of 
them are deserted, for the fashionable women who 
followed the fashion in joining hospitals have now 
again followed the fashion and fled, pell-mell. 

The newspaper men and the "war correspon- 
dents " have been particularly concerned for their 
own safety. By supreme efforts, I today managed 

59 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

to obtain conveyances to transport several of 
them out of the city — men with sweat on their 
brows and hands that trembled. There is an 
element of humor in it all, despite the sadness. 
One of the staff remarked, "Do you notice how 
all the newspaper men, who for weeks have been 
pestering us with requests to be sent to the front, 
now demand as insistently to be sent away, when 
the front is at last coming to them?" In time of 
peace diplomats and war correspondents are easily 
the most pugnacious people in the world. If one 
has taken them at their own estimation the re- 
sulting contrast is painful. 

Today we took over the interests of Great 
Britain, Japan, and Guatemala. We have repre- 
sented Germany, Austria, and Hungary since the 
beginning of August, so that, including the United 
States, we are now seven embassies in one. 

Friday, September 4th. Last evening all Paris 

awaited the "six o'clock Taube" which has 

become for the French a regular and almost 

welcome feature of each day's happenings. At 

four o'clock a French aviator in a monoplane took 

the air and mounted up, up, up, in slow wide 

60 




% M. DELCASSE, FRANCE'S MINISTER OP FOREIGN AFFAIRS 
(He is the most capable of France's statesmen, and was the prime mover in the 
formation of the Triple Entente. He has been three times Minister of Marine, 
once Minister of the Colonies, and five times Minister of Foreign Affairs.] 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

circles whose center was the Tour Eiffel, until he 
finally reached an altitude of some 10,000 feet. 
Then, a mere speck in the cold, thin air, he circled 
slowly around and around, waiting for the German 
— who never came. Even without this climax 
the situation was thrilling enough. The French- 
man descended sadly from his lofty beat just as 
night fell, while waiting Paris was distinctly dis- 
appointed. That night in the restaurants one 
heard Frenchmen express the extraordinary hope 
that nothing too terrible had happened to brave 
Lieutenant von Heidssen. 

This morning Paris is informed that the Lieuten- 
ant had been punctually on his way to his daily 
appointment when, in flying over the Bois de 
Vincennes, a rifle bullet had passed through his 
heart. Strange to say, he planed down on a long 
steep slant, this man-bird, just as game birds 
do when similarly stricken, and landed without 
serious damage to his machine. He was found 
sitting stone dead, strapped up in his seat. Such 
is the quick generosity of the French temperament 
that today he is mourned by all Paris, this Lieuten- 
ant von Heidssen, who died on his lonely way to 

keep his fifth punctual appointment with the city 

61 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

of his enemies. Paris actually regrets that he no 
longer comes at six each evening to throw bombs 
at her. 

Mr. Herrick's remaining in Paris has been 
greeted with wonderful appreciation and enthu- 
siasm by the whole French nation. His picture 
is in all the newspapers and shop windows, and 
even the most humble member of the Embassy 
shines by reflected glory. 

The diplomatic responsibilities resting on our 
Embassy become more and more important, but 
everyone acknowledges that in each emergency 
Mr. Herrick shows himself equal to the situation. 
When the first German aeroplane threw bombs at 
Paris, a wave of indignation and protestation 
swept over the city. It was one of those waves of 
excitement which carry judgment before it. Citi- 
zens and officials, newspapers and posters, French- 
men and Americans, all besought and begged Mr. 
Herrick, "the courageous, the noble Mr. Herrick, " 
to make formal protest to Washington. Every- 
where one heard in angry tones the phrases: 
"brutality," "contrary to the Hague Conven- 
tion," "killing non-combatants," "barbarians." 

62 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

Mr. Herrick decided that there was more danger 
in protesting too soon than of protesting too late. 
He delayed long enough to consult his books and 
to confer with his legal and military advisers. I 
was fortunate enough to be present when he read 
the final summing-up of his conclusions. He had 
discovered that neither Germany nor France had 
signed the clause of the Hague Convention for- 
bidding air-craft to drop bombs on cities. There- 
fore, the law that non-combatants of a city must 
be warned before any bombardment is begun did 
not, in the case of these two nations, technically 
apply, whatever the considerations of humanity 
might dictate. 

Mr. Herrick did not protest, for there was 
legally nothing to protest about. He forwarded 
verbatim to Washington the protests of the French 
Government. 

One now sees many British and Belgian soldiers 
about Paris. They have come in on the edges 
of the great retreat. Their morale is exactly the 
reverse of what one would expect in troops who 
have been badly beaten. They express great 
contempt for the German soldier. They describe 
him as a stupid, brutal, big-footed creature, who 

63 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

does not know how to shoot and who has a dis- 
taste for the bayonet. They seem unable to under- 
stand why they have been beaten by the Germans 
and try to explain it by saying, "There are so 
many of them." 

The Belgians, nearly all of whom have come 
from Liege and Namur, speak in the most awe- 
stricken terms of the effects of the big German 
siege guns, which fire a shell 1 1.2 inches in 
diameter. These guns were placed in distant 
valleys and could not be located by the Belgians. 
Moreover, they outranged the guns of the forts 
and could not have been injured even if they had 
been located. The forts thus lay hopeless and 
awaited their doom, which came suddenly enough 
in the shape of great shells dropping out of the 
sky upon their cupolas. The explosions might 
have been approximated by combining an earth- 
quake, a volcanic eruption, and a cyclone. 

Namur was surrounded by twelve forts. The 
bombardment began on a Wednesday night and 
three of the forts were reduced to scrap in two 
days. The Germans marched through the gap 
thus made and took the other forts in the rear, so 
that in less than three days Namur was completely 

64 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

in their possession. This will undoubtedly be the 
system used against Paris, and apparently there is 
no antidote. The forts cannot reply, for they can- 
not determine where the big guns are located ; but 
meanwhile the big guns know the exact position of 
the forts, and they, moreover, outrange the forts. 

Today I had an opportunity to talk with three 
British officers recently arrived in Paris from that 
part of the front just this side of Chantilly. They 
were incredibly grimy, dirty, and sweaty and were 
greatly embarrassed thereby. They were of the 
first body of British troops landed in France; they 
had met the Germans at Charleroi and had been 
through the whole retreat of nearly one hundred 
and fifty miles, having been constantly in action 
for some two weeks. They summed up their 
experiences by saying that they had received "a 
hell of a licking. " This statement is rather over- 
modest since within a day or so we have learned 
that the British, numbering about sixty thousand, 
were opposed by four or five German army corps, 
amounting to two hundred thousand men, and 
that in spite of this the British had retreated 
stubbornly, contesting every mile. 

65 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 



A most extraordinary thing which these officers 
told me was that, during their whole retreat from 
Charleroi to Compiegne, they had never seen a 
single French soldier nor received any assistance 
from the French army. One is tempted to wonder 
what would have happened if there had been 
no British army to help check the retreat toward 
Paris. 

British soldiers agree that they have received 
most extraordinary hospitality from the civilians 
and peasantry of Belgium and France. Whole 
villages, themselves facing starvation, gave their 
last crumb of bread and their last drop of wine to 
the British troops and cheerfully slept in the fields 
in order that the soldiers might snatch a bit of 
rest in their houses. 

All the officers with whom I have had the oppor- 
tunity to talk agree that the German losses have 
been enormous. I do not think that this is entirely 
patriotic exaggeration, since British officers are 
not particularly prone to flights of fancy. One of 
them prefaced his remarks on the retreat from 
Charleroi by saying, "The truth of the matter is, 
we got damn well licked," and went on to say 

that his men shot and shot and shot until they 

66 



THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS 

became sick of killing, and that the Germans kept 
coming, always coming, their ranks riddled and 
smashed by bullets and shells. The British all 
agree that the German troops have an unflinching, 
dogged, brutal courage, which nothing seems to 
daunt. They come on and on, climbing over the 
bodies of the regiments which have gone before. 
The German tactics are those of Napoleon. They 
attack a position and they keep on attacking it 
until they take it, no matter what it costs; regi- 
ments and brigades are wiped out without any 
wavering in the commander's resolve or in the 
dogged persistence of his troops. 

In spite of the fact that they have been con- 
stantly beaten by German tactics, the officers of 
the Allies persist in considering them antiquated 
and barbarous. They ascribe the German suc- 
cesses to their big guns and to the wonderfully 
efficient way in which their bad tactics are carried 
out. They all agree that the German skill in 
concentrating troops before an attack is wonderful. 
So far they have never failed to have overwhelm- 
ing numbers at any point of offense. 



67 



CHAPTER III 

WITH THE BRITISH ARMY. THE NIGHT BEFORE 
THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

Paris, Sunday, September 6th. Since the French 
Government left Paris we have been totally 
ignorant of all that is going on outside of the city 
walls. For the past few days everything has been 
hazy rumor. During all last week we expected 
the Germans to march into Paris any day; for 
their headquarters were at Compiegne, their 
heavy advance at Senlis and Coulomiers, and their 
cavalry at Pontoise and Chantilly. 

With the Germans only fifteen miles from the 
gates of Paris, the newspapers make no definite 
mention of the fact, but fill their space with ac- 
counts of the great victories which the Russians 
think to win in Silicia. Rumor has it that the 
Germans have even encircled Paris and are at Fon- 
tainebleau to the south-southeast. This is highly 
improbable, but we have already seen that the 

68 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 

wildest improbability of one day becomes an 
actuality the next. Everyone at the Embassy, and 
indeed all Paris, is desperately anxious for news. 
Even unfavorable news would be better than 
this prolonged suspense. Everyone inquires and 
wonders and queries, but no one knows what the 
real situation is — where the German army is 
stationed, what its next move may be, or if any 
of the Allied army is between it and Paris. 

After several days of great tension, desperately 
trying to the active American temperament, I 
decided that the easiest way to find out what was 
happening outside the city was to go and see. It 
was first absolutely necessary to obtain permission 
from the authorities of Paris to pass out of the 
gates — as without proper papers I would certainly 
be arrested. I, by this time, knew personally 
many of the police officials in the city, having 
interviewed them hundreds of times in regard to 
German and Austrian internes. Finally I found 
one who thought he knew me well enough to trust 
me with a pass. He explained that the garrison 
of Paris occupied a zone which extended out from 
the walls ten miles in all directions. Outside this 
were the moving armies, and once beyond the 

69 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

defensive zone we could, at our own risk, go where 
we chose. My permit stated that we were bound 
for Lagny, which is about twelve miles from the 
gates and well outside the circle of defense. I 
took one of the Embassy automobiles driven by 
a skillful American amateur, Melvin Hall. He 
drove his own six-cylinder high-power car, carrying 
a light touring body. 

We left the city about four o'clock in the after- 
noon by the Porte de Vincennes. Immediately 
we left the walls behind us, we found all the roads 
guarded by French troops and barred by elaborate 
obstructions. Every two or three minutes we 
were brought to a stop by little gated forts built 
across the highway, which were loopholed for rifles 
and commanded the road in both directions. 
These were designed to retard German scouting 
parties or halt German mitrailleuse automobiles. 
The barriers were built of an extraordinary variety 
of material : trees, paving-stones, barrels, carts, hen- 
coops, sandbags, boxes, and fence-rails. At each 
barrier were stationed a score or more of soldiers,, 
and as one approached, one saw the gleam of 
bayonets and heard a sharp, imperative "Hal te- 
la!" When we came to a full stop, two or three 

70 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 

of the sentinels would step out cautiously and 
suspiciously, their rifles all ready for action, while 
in a gingerly way they examined our papers. 

The barriers were usually placed in positions of 
strategic importance, on hills or ridges, and always 
one was found at each end of the main thorough- 
fare of every village. All the side streets of the 
villages were closed and fortified, and any opening 
between the outermost houses was piled high with 
obstructions. Each little town within the fortified 
zone thus became itself a small fort, a complete 
circle of defense. We travelled along slowly for 
some ten miles, being halted and examined about 
every half mile. Finally we came to a great trench 
which ran across the fields on either side of the 
road. Facing away from Paris, one looked over a 
valley, and in the distance could distinctly hear 
the boom of guns in action. 

We were now at the outer line of the defense 
zone, within which all the roads, bridges, and 
valleys were held by infantry working in con- 
junction with the large forts placed at intervals 
in the great circle. Outside of this zone is open 
country in which battles are being fought; where 
and when, it was our aim to discover. 

7i 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACH^ 

At the trench where we halted, the men on guard 
were very much on the qui vive and the officers 
were busy with their field-glasses, for they had just 
received warning that German cavalry were in 
front of them in the valley over which we looked. 
We stopped to talk for a few minutes with the 
commanding officer, and then, releasing our brakes, 
slid quietly out in front of the- trench, down the 
hill. 

It was silent and lonely in the valley ; the whole 
countryside was desolate. We saw neither soldier 
nor civilian. The very air seemed charged with 
disaster. In a few minutes we ran into Lagny, 
which was absolutely deserted. A curious sensa- 
tion it is to enter a town having all the marks of 
being inhabited and yet to sense the utter absence 
of human beings. On the village square, however, 
we found the Mayor, who, like so many brave 
French officials throughout the country, had felt 
it his first duty to stand by his community, come 
what might to him personally. He told us that 
the Germans were spread all over the country 
between Lagny and the Meaux, ten miles away, 
and added that their cavalry had been through the 

town recently and might return any minute. He 

72 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 

then warned us that we could not cross the Marne, 
which ran through the village, because the bridges 
were all down. We, therefore, turned south 
toward Fessieres, at right angles to our original 
course, and parallel to the walls of Paris. 

Before reaching Ferrieres, we again touched the 
outer lines of the fortified camp. Here a big 
standing trench was occupied by French infan- 
try which had been in action with some German 
cavalry only a few minutes before. The captain in 
command asked us to take a soldier who had been 
wounded back to the brigade hospital some two or 
three miles to the rear. This we did gladly and 
found the hospital located in the schoolhouse of 
a small village. Here we also encountered a 
wounded English private who was manifestly 
grateful to hear the sound of his own language. 
The village was occupied by a large body of 
French Hussars who were there encamped. Some 
of them were rubbing down their horses, others 
were cooking supper. The gray smoke of the 
fires ascending through the poplar trees, the bare- 
armed soldiers laboring over their mounts, the 
deserted houses, the litter of saddles and equip- 
ment, made a picture not soon to be forgotten. 

73 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

We returned to the entrenchments again, 
crossed them, and proceeded to Ferrieres, where 
we at last found a road which turned off to the 
east. We followed this for two miles, passing 
through the grounds of a large chateau only to 
find the road barred by an impassable combination 
of ditches, barriers, and barbed wire. We went 
back again to Ferrieres, which we learned had 
been the seat of the British General Staff only that 
morning, and from there continued southward for 
several miles to another village called Pontcarre. 
Here at last we found a straight and open road to 
the east. We turned down it at top speed, not 
having the faintest idea of what was ahead, and 
ran for ten miles through deserted farming country 
in which the only signs of life were two French 
cavalry patrols scouting through the woods. 

Just as night was falling, we approached Ville- 
neuve-le-Comte. Watchful sentries in khaki sur- 
rounded the village, and the fields around it on 
all sides were packed with British troops, who had 
just arrived and were in the act of bivouacking for 
the night. From them we learned that the Ger- 
man army was less than three miles away at 
Crecy and that on the morrow at dawn a great 

74 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 

battle was to be staged. All the Allies had been 
force-marching to get there in time. 

On every side camp fires gleamed out through 
the gray of the gloaming and their smoke mounted 
upward to mingle with the gray of the evening 
sky above. Everywhere one saw men and horses 
blissfully resting after the long, hot, and dusty 
march. The men lay upon the ground with every 
muscle relaxed, while the horses, with drooped 
heads, stood first on one tired hind foot and then 
upon the other. Long lines of motor trucks loaded 
with ammunition were parked along the gutters 
of all the roads and byways. Along the crowded 
highway a lane was, however, sacredly kept open, 
and men looked twice before they ventured to 
cross it. From time to time an orderly on a motor- 
cycle, carrying instructions to subordinate com- 
manders, would zip at a dizzy speed down this 
narrow path which was flanked by almost un- 
broken walls of men, wagons, and lorries. 

The streets of the little French village were 
crowded full with khaki-clad soldiers. A battalion 
of Highlanders were going through inspection in 
the dusk. They now numbered only three hundred 
odd, but two weeks ago in Belgium they had been 

75 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

eleven hundred strong. An officer of another 
regiment informed us that he knew of no British 
battalion in all history which had sustained such 
heavy losses and yet been able to maintain its 
formation and fight on. We watched with interest 
the Scotchmen of that regiment file by after dis- 
missal. They were incredibly tattered and torn, 
their kilts dirty and frayed; many of them wore 
big, battered straw hats. The only things about 
them which were neat were their rifles, their 
bayonets, and their clean-shaven faces. One 
could certainly have no doubts as to the excellent 
state of their morale; we were, indeed, much im- 
pressed by the morale of all these British troops 
who, notwithstanding the fact that they had been 
beaten back during two long weeks across a 
hundred and fifty miles of country and had been 
retreating until that very morning, in no sense 
felt themselves defeated but eagerly awaited the 
word to advance and attack. 

We spent a profitable and long-to-be-remem- 
bered hour and a half talking with the British 
officers and watching the troops. We had brought 
with us a supply of the two things they most 
craved — matches and newspapers, and whenever 

76 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 

any of these were distributed it nearly produced a 
riot. When a box of matches was handed out, 
two matches would, as long as they lasted, be 
given to each man of a company. 

Word was passed around that we were to return 
to Paris that evening, and first and last we were 
given some fifty notes written hurriedly by the 
men who wished to send a last word to their homes 
before the battle which was to begin on the morrow. 
We, of course, accepted these notes only with the 
permission of the officers. 

It was long after dark before we started back 
toward Paris. Mist and fog hung close to the 
ground, and it was a weird ride as we felt our way 
through lonely woods and deserted villages, being 
continually stopped by ditches or barbed wire or a 
barrier across the road. Often ahead of us we 
would suddenly see bayonets flickering through the 
mist as our headlights shone out upon them, and 
immediately the terse cry of "Halte-la!" followed; 
a sergeant would come forward, lantern in hand, to 
examine our papers and suspiciously look us over. 
All the time we felt that a dozen unseen rifles 
were leveled at us from somewhere out in the 
dark. 

77 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

We re-entered Paris through the Porte de 
Vincennes at half -past eight. After dinner I made 
a report of our trip to Mr. Herrick, saying that a 
great battle was about to begin ; that the German 
armies formed a right angle, the apex of which 
was near Meaux, while one side extended north 
through Senlis and the other ran almost due east ; 
that between this German army and Paris were 
stationed the British and French troops who would 
retreat no farther but expected themselves to 
open the attack in the morning. After the sus- 
pense of the past few days it is a tremendous re- 
lief to have definite news. 

Monday, September ?th. For me all the world 
was this morning electric with excitement. That 
Paris should go calmly about her daily rou- 
tine, unconscious and unconcerned, seemed mon- 
strous. I wanted to grasp everyone I met and 
cry: "The Germans are only twenty miles away! 
A great battle is even now being fought just out- 
side the gates! — a battle on the issue of which 
hangs the fate of France — and much more than 
France. If the thin line which stands between 
Paris and her enemies does not hold, this day sees 

78 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 

France reduced to a second-rate Power and Paris 
will again hear the tramp of German armies 
marching down the Champs-Elysees!" My feet 
walked the familiar streets, but every pulse-beat, 
every conscious thought was with the Allied 
armies of defense with which I had so recently 
been in touch. The sense of their near presence 
and of their great conflict was much more vivid 
to me than the objects passing before my physical 
eyes. 

Tuesday, September 8 th. I spent yesterday 
and today at the Embassy superintending the 
card-indexing of the German internes. Think of 
card catalogues! and the battle, perhaps the 
world's greatest battle, raging no farther away 
than one might reach in an hour by automobile! 

Wednesday, September gth. Mr. Breckenridge, 
the American Assistant Secretary of War, has 
arrived in Paris, and with him came also Colonel 
Allen of the General Staff of the United States 
Army. Just as I reached the limit of endurance 
in card-indexing, release came. 

Through the energy and activity of Mr. Brecken- 
79 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

ridge, a permit has been obtained allowing Colonel 
Allen, Captain Parker, and myself to leave the city 
and view the battle which is raging outside. We 
are to observe and study as much of the operations 
as possible, in order to gather information useful 
to our army in America. 

We are allowed to take our own chauffeur, and 
Melvin Hall, at my suggestion, has been chosen 
for this position. We hope to stay a week and 
shall leave tomorrow, if the machine can be made 
ready for so long a trip in so short a time. 

Thursday, September ioth. I had this morn- 
ing a long talk with Richard Harding Davis. He 
has just arrived from Belgium and is at present 
striving to get permits to see the war in France. 
He said that never in his previous war experiences 
had he seen such unspeakable atrocities as the 
Germans have committed in Belgium. He speaks 
nearly as vehemently about it as does Dr. Louis 
Seaman. He is the first person with whom I have 
had opportunity to talk who has actually been in 
Belgium and saw the details of the violation of 
that country by Germany. 

Hall was today unable to complete the prepara- 
80 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 

tions on his automobile. On this trip, running 
through a region devastated by war, we dare not 
count on finding gasoline, tires, or food, but must 
start well stocked with all these essentials. We 
wish to keep going at least five or six days and 
probably shall find during that time no oppor- 
tunity to refit. Hall is, therefore, loading up every 
spare corner of his automobile with food, tires, 
and gasoline cans. 

The great cry of the troops at the front is for 
matches, cigarettes, and newspapers. I have pur- 
chased one hundred boxes of matches, one hundred 
and sixty newspapers, and six hundred cigarettes 
to distribute among them as chance offers. 

It has been raining almost constantly this week. 
One cannot help wondering what effect it has had 
upon the great battle out yonder, the battle about 
which we still know so little, and of which we 
think so anxiously. 



8l 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

Friday, September nth. It still continues to 
rain much of the time. Today it developed into 
a drenching, pelting, soaking downpour, which 
continued all day long. 

Colonel Allen, Captain Parker, and I had 
luncheon at the Grand Hotel. Hall arrived with 
the machine at two o'clock. He had packed into 
it, or tied to it, an immense stock of canned goods, 
biscuits, and bread, an incredible amount of gaso- 
line, with a heavy overcoat and small satchel for 
each one of us, until the car looked more like a 
commissariat wagon than a touring car. We were 
bidden God-speed by Major Henry, Captain 
Barker, and Lieut. Hunnicutt and by Frederick 
Palmer and Richard Harding Davis, when just 
before half-past two we shot out from the porte- 
cochere into the rain, prepared if necessary to 
stay away a week. 

82 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

We ran rapidly to Lagny along an unobstructed 
route, where only a few days ago Hall and I had 
continually been held up by the barriers and troops 
of the defensive zone. We had then not been 
permitted to travel half a mile without being 
halted. Today what a change! We saw no 
troops at all in this defensive zone and with a 
thrill we thus realized that the battle must be 
going favorably for the Allies. 

Between the Porte de Vincennes and Lagny our 
papers were examined only once, by a solitary 
sentry on the bridge at Bry-sur-Marne. It is 
evident that the Germans have either been beaten 
back or have chosen to retire from the neighbor- 
hood. From Lagny we passed rapidly to Ville- 
neuve-le-Comte, which was now totally devoid of 
troops. At Crecy we came upon the first signs of 
war. Here we saw a big park of British reserve 
ammunition. All along the roads were the re- 
mains of a German field telephone line, which had 
doubtless been constructed about the time Hall 
and I had been in Villeneuve on Sunday. 

All day the rain continued to pour in torrents. 

83 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Our machine rolled over the brow of a hilltop 
and below us in a hollow we saw the little village 
of Rebais. The road straight before us gently- 
sloped down to the hamlet, passing through it as 
its principal street. Yesterday there had been 
heavy fighting in and around the town; French 
troops had entered it and advanced through it 
under heavy fire. There were great black holes 
in the roofs and walls and the ground was littered 
with bits of glass and slate. The village lay very 
still and motionless in the pelting rain. We 
glanced up each of its lanes as we glided by, and 
in each the bodies of numerous dead French 
soldiers lay sodden in the mud, with their red 
legs sticking out in attitudes of ludicrous ghastli- 
ness. A line of ammunition wagons half a mile 
long was parked at the side of the village street 
and the horses were picketed in long lines in the 
adjacent gardens and fields. 

On the right there was a level mowed field along 
the edge of which the teamsters were huddled over 
campfires, cooking. Beginning a few yards behind 
them the field was strewn with dead soldiers lying 
monstrously conspicuous on the bare ground. On 
the far side of the field half a mile away was a 

84 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

jumble of houses, trees, and fences, and here 
German infantry supported by two batteries had 
the day before taken up a position. A battalion 
of the 17th French Line Regiment had charged 
across the flat field into their teeth. We were told 
that in this charge they had lost fifty per cent, of 
their men but had gone on undaunted, and had 
"got home" a la bayonette, capturing the position 
and a number of prisoners. 

We walked silently among the dead. Where 
the casualties had been heaviest, we counted 
seventeen bodies within a circle thirty paces in 
diameter. Every man of the group had fallen 
forward with his bayonet pointing straight out in 
front of him. Some had been running with such 
Ban that in falling their shoulders had fairly plowed 
into the. soft ground. They had nearfy all been 
killed by shrapnel fire, which in most cases had 
killed cleanly. We found one, however, who had 
been badly mashed by a shell which had burst in 
the ground at his feet, making a deep, oblong hole 
six feet long into which his shattered body had 
fallen. The metal identification tags, one of which 
every soldier wears, had not been collected. 
These are removed by the burying squad, and 

85 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

sent home as announcers of the decease. This 
group had all been so recently killed that their 
faces were very lifelike. One found oneself re- 
peating "How natural they look!" and one could 
pretty well judge what sort of men they had been 
in life. Here was a slight smooth-faced blond- 
haired boy, who must have been dearly beloved 
by the women of his family. Here again a serious, 
kindly, middle-aged man whose face bore a curi- 
ous expression of preoccupation. I caught myself 
thinking, "I should like to have known him. " 
We found one who in his dying agony had evidently 
taken from his pocket a letter which now lay a 
sodden mass in his dead hand. We could not resist 
that mute appeal, but picked the letter carefully 
from his stiff fingers to be dried out later and de- 
livered, if possible, to the woman to whom it was 
addressed. 

As one looked at all these useless, cumbersome 
bits of carrion which no one in the rush of war had 
had time to remove, one could not but remember 
how each one had been suddenly wrenched from 
a useful life and in death had somewhere left a 
broken family. The dead do not have the tragic 
expressions with which painters credit them. 

86 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

Those who have been instantly killed generally 
wear grotesque expressions. Some look bored — 
others have a silly look of surprise, as if a practi- 
cal joke had just been played upon them. These 
grotesque expressions are much more frightful 
than could be any indicative of suffering. Those 
who have died slowly are usually propped up 
against something in a sitting posture, and their 
faces express happiness or perfect peace. 

We passed beyond the position which the Ger- 
mans had recently held. Here beside the road was 
a farmer's house with a great hole in its roof. In 
the door stood a very old man gazing stupidly 
at the landscape. In front of his house lay side 
by side three dead Germans. They lay on their 
backs; the coat and shirt of each had been torn 
open at the neck and their bare breasts were 
marred by a clotted mass of closely grouped bullet 
marks. Further inspection showed that their 
arms were tied behind them and we knew that we 
were witnessing the results of a military execution. 
The old man against whose house they had been 
shot explained that they had been among the 
prisoners taken in the charge of the French 

87 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

infantry the day before and that their fate had been 
the penalty for what was revealed when their 
pockets had been searched. 

We cross-questioned several inhabitants of the 
little village of Boissy, who told us that the Ger- 
mans had held the place for five days and had 
left only two days ago, on Wednesday evening. 
Fleeing at the approach of a heavy force of the 
British, they had retired in a northeasterly direc- 
tion. We judged from the description given by 
the peasants that the force which had occupied the 
neighborhood consisted of a division of cavalry 
with a strong force of artillery. In entering Boissy 
the Germans had cornered a patrol of about twenty 
British cavalrymen and had killed them all, the 
last three having defended themselves in a little 
brick house where they had been shot down ©ne by 
one. The Germans had burned this house and 
the two adjoining ones in order to make sure that 
no more troopers were in hiding. We saw only 
one other building in the village which had been 
damaged. The inhabitants explained that it was 
a jewelry shop and that the invaders had wrecked 
it hoping to find hidden valuables. We did not 

88 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

have time to investigate this statement. There 
had been no fighting in the streets other than the 
battle with the British patrol and we considered 
the condition of the place a credit to the force 
which had occupied it. The inhabitants, indeed, 
protested that all food supplies had been confis- 
cated but agreed that no civilians had been injured 
and that no women had been molested. 

As we approached Montmirail, we passed a 
beautiful monument, dedicated to Napoleon, who 
had directed a battle from that spot in 1814, one 
hundred years ago. A golden eagle surmounted a 
column which stood upon a stepped base. The 
fields about were plowed by shells and yesterday 
one shell had knocked a big chunk off the side of 
the column about halfway up. Leaning against 
the base, in an attitude of infinite weariness, sat a 
dead French soldier. 

Much of the dismal aftermath of battle seems to 
be concentrated along the highways, which are 
punctuated by dead men and dead horses thrown 
into the gutters to be out of the way. Long trains 
of horse-drawn wagons plod wearily along toward 
the front ; the towns through which they pass are 

89 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

battered and nearly deserted; the poplars which 
line the roads are broken and gashed by shells, and 
the fields on either side are marred by shell craters 
and by the trenches of the burying squads. 

We entered the shattered town of Montmirail 
at nightfall. Long lines of ammunition wagons 
were encamped for the night just outside and the 
town itself was packed with troops. The place 
had been for eighteen consecutive hours under a 
heavy artillery bombardment. The houses were 
battered, the streets were pitted by shells, and there 
remained in the whole village not a single unbroken 
window. There had been much fighting in the 
streets and the place had been alternately taken 
and retaken by Germans and French. 

All accommodation in the town had by one 
blanket order been requisitioned for the military. 
We plowed our way through rain and mud to the 
office of the Mayor who kindly assigned us to 
rooms, giving us written orders on the owners, who 
turned out to be a quaint old French shirtmaker 
and his wife. Hall and I went scouting around 
through the place and managed to get hold of 
a fourteen-sou loaf of bread and two bottles of 
wine which served as supper, thus saving our own 

90 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

precious supplies for future emergencies. Be- 
fore returning, we visited two cafes which were 
jammed with soldiery, from whom we managed to 
glean a lot of very interesting information. They 
all spoke with the greatest respect, admiration, 
and affection of their field artillery 7 , "le soixante- 
quinze. " 

Provisions were very scarce. We saw a Turco, 
who had apparently lost his regiment and who 
spoke scarcely any French, vainly trying to find 
some food. He walked about through the cafes 
waving a one hundred franc note in each hand and 
ceaselessly demanding something to eat. 

After supper a council of war was held in order 
to decide upon our course of action for the morrow. 
Captain Parker was eager to hunt for a vortex of 
the battle where, he held, the primary decision must 
have been lost and won and the fighting would have 
been most intense ; while the action on all the other 
parts of the line must have been contingent upon 
the results at this ' ' tactical center. ' ' This ' ' focus ' ' 
could not have been to the north or west of Paris, 
because the great bodies of French troops are to 

9i 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

the east ; nor was it on the battle line nearest Paris, 
for everything we saw today in and behind the 
zone of operations testified to the contrary. 
In all the actions we have so far observed, the 
Germans were retiring deliberately in a retreat 
evidently determined by some ulterior cause. We 
noted many places where severe fighting had 
taken place, but in every case it bore the unmis- 
takable signs of being merely a hotly contested 
rear-guard action. We so far have neither seen 
nor heard of any great German defeat such as 
must somewhere have occurred in order to start 
a general retreat, and to force such numerous rear- 
guard actions. A victorious German army does 
not suddenly begin to retire unless compelled to 
do so by a gigantic and crushing defeat at some one 
point; such a defeat must mean days of losses so 
frightful that the beaten army is physically 
exhausted and its morale shaken. 

From a military point of view it was of vital 
importance to discover this spot and to study the 
battlefield for lessons in tactics. Captain Parker 
maintained that it would be more profitable to 
find this center than to give way to our inclination 
to go forward into the actual fighting; that if we 

92 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

could locate it, it would be best to stay upon the 
abandoned field of the German defeat to study- 
how the battle had been fought. He pointed out 
that the opportunity would be equivalent to being 
upon the field of Waterloo or Gettysburg the day 
after action ceased. As a result of the confer- 
ence, it was finally decided' to accept Captain 
Parker's contention and hunt for the battlefield of 
the great and decisive French victory, rather than 
to turn north toward the constant booming of 
cannon. We shall, therefore, continue to work 
our way to the eastward toward Chalons-sur- 
Marne, beating back and forth across the country 
and carefully covering all the ground. 

At the Front, Saturday, September 12th. We 
slept last night in beds which had recently been 
occupied by German officers and spent a very 
chilly night therein on account of the cold, wet 
wind which blew in through the many shattered 
windows. We woke to the rumbling of distant 
cannon, which might more correctly be called a 
trembling of the air rather than a true sound. Still 
hoarding our provisions, we ate a frugal break- 
fast of stale bread and of tea made from the dried 
leaves of linden trees. We started off at half -past 

93 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

seven, receiving a very friendly God-speed from 
our aged host and hostess. 

All morning we made our way in an easterly 
direction, beating back and forth across the 
country in order to cover as much ground as 
possible. When we turned to the north the sound 
of cannon became louder and when we swung to 
the south it grew fainter. We studied the country 
carefully and, when possible, talked with any of the 
Allied officers we chanced to meet. They usually 
knew thoroughly the events which had taken place 
in the particular neighborhood in which they had 
operated, but were astonishingly ignorant of what 
had gone on at any distance. What they told us 
was always very valuable, because it assisted us to 
piece together the fabric of the campaign as a 
whole. 

Beyond Vauchamps we came upon a scene where 
there had been heavy artillery fighting. The 
fields were plowed up by innumerable shells and 
many dead horses were strewn along the gutters, 
with here and there a dead soldier who had fallen 
in the road and been hurriedly thrown aside so 
that he should not hinder traffic. 

94 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

The highway was elevated a bit above the level 
country which stretched on either side, and at one 
spot we saw where two German guns had fought 
from behind this slight protection. They had been 
placed in holes sunk a few inches into the ground, 
and the loose earth had been piled up to form 
a little mound in front, preventing bullets from 
flying under the gun shield. Empty cartridge 
cases were strewn about and a pile of unused am- 
munition was stacked up like cord wood. The 
German guns had been in sight of a French battery 
across the fields and a direct -fire artillery duel 
had taken place between the two. The craters of 
thirty-two French shells were within twenty paces 
of the emplacements and the ground was strewn 
with splinters and shrapnel cases. There were 
several very dead German artillerymen who had 
evidently been working the guns when direct hits 
had been made upon the material of the battery. 
No limbers or caissons had been with the guns, but 
a caisson had been placed in a field about two 
hundred yards behind, and men ran up and down 
across the field carrying ammunition in wicker 
baskets, each of which holds three shells. We 
picked up four of these shell baskets as curiosities 

95 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 
« 
and managed to find room for them in our 

machine. 

As we advanced we became more and more con- 
vinced of the correctness of Capt. Parker's theory 
that there had been a big focal center of the battle 
somewhere still to the east of us, and that the 
actions along the rest of the line of contact from 
Paris to Lorraine had occurred with reference to 
this vortex. 

It is characteristic of the limited knowledge 
which troops in battle have of what goes on outside 
of their immediate geographical vicinity, that we 
ran almost into the great battle area for which we 
were searching before anyone gave us a hint of its 
location. It was at Vertus that we were told by 
a French officer that terrific fighting had taken 
place in the upland plateau to the south of us, 
around a place called Fere Champenoise; that the 
Germans had there made their main attack with 
close to a quarter of a million men; that a frightful 
battle had raged, a battle in which the Germans 
were at first, during some thirty-six hours, victori- 
ous, but that, with the arrival of reinforcements, 

the Ninth French Army under General Foch had 

96 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

turned the tide and finally routed them. . The 
officers said that the fighting and slaughter had 
been frightful ; that the combined casualties of the 
two sides were close to two hundred thousand on a 
front of something over twenty miles and a depth 
of about fifteen miles. They said that the battle 
area was contained roughly within a circumference 
drawn through the villages of Champaubert, 
Coligny, Pierre-Morains, Clamanges, Sommesous, 
Gourgancon, Corroy, and Sezanne. 

As we conferred with the officers a constant 
stream of reinforcements for the French army was 
passing, coming from Fere Champenoise and 
marching toward Ay and Epernay; regiments of 
infantry, ammunition trains, caissons, transports, 
and cavalry, all marching endlessly toward the 
booming guns to the northward. 

We turned our machine to the south with a 
feeling of the greatest awe at the thought of what 
two hundred thousand casualties must mean. 
We were silent for some minutes as the machine 
sped along, and then Captain Parker remarked: 
"At Gettysburg or at Waterloo the total forces 
engaged amounted to only about one hundred and 
sixty thousand !" 

97 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

We ran toward the slope of the plateau, passing 
slowly an endless, unbroken line of transports. 
Beyond Bergeres-Les-Vertus an infantry brigade 
was resting beside the road and the tired men were 
cooking and eating. 

We tried to comprehend the battle as a whole 
by studying a great many fields, any one of which 
would a few years ago have been considered an 
entire battle in itself. The dead were scattered 
far and wide; and in the fields and among the 
grain- stacks the wounded cried out their piteous 
faint appeals. Little groups of German stragglers 
were hiding in the forests, and squads of alert 
French soldiers hunted them down, beating through 
the cover as eager setter dogs search for grouse. 
In one field of about six acres lay nine hundred 
German dead and wounded ; across another, where 
a close-action fight had raged, two hundred French 
and Germans lay mixed together, all mashed and 
ripped. Here was the curious sight of a German 
and Frenchman lying face to face, both dead, and 
each one transfixed by the other's bayonet. 

The very birds of the air and the beasts of the 

field lay dead and rotting amid the general de- 

98 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

struction. We saw feathers and bits of chickens 
and halves of cows. On one occasion Hall main- 
tained that "it" had been a cow, while I thought 
"it" was a horse, and no piece large enough for a 
certain identification could be found. Of some 
of the villages which had been peaceful and beauti- 
ful a week ago, there remained now only chimneys, 
ashes, and bits of walls rising from smouldering 
gray debris. A French village wrecked by battle 
looks very much wrecked indeed, in contrast with 
its habitual orderly and toy-like appearance. 

I was not so horrified in viewing these ghastly 
sights as I had expected, because I could not put 
from me a sense of their unreality. The human 
mind is incapable of comprehending to the full 
such terrible happenings. One kept endlessly 
saying to oneself: "Can all this which we are see- 
ing really have taken place in this once quiet 
French countryside, almost within the suburbs of 
Paris ? It seems impossible — unbelievable ! ' ' 

In the little upland village of Clamanges was a 
field hospital which had been established by the 
Germans when they first occupied the place on the 
night of September 7th. They had held it until 

99 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

their retreat on the ioth, when their retirement was 
so precipitate that they had been unable to take 
with them their wounded. 

In this war it is the custom to convert the village 
churches into hospitals. The chairs and benches 
are thrown out into the graveyard and the floor 
is covered with straw upon which the wounded are 
laid in long rows extending the length of the nave. 
The altar is converted into the pharmacist's 
headquarters and bottles and medicaments are 
piled thereon, while bandages, for want of room, 
are sometimes hung upon the statue of the Virgin, 
who has, in this unique service, an air of sublime 
and compassionate contentment. An operating 
room is usually established in the vestry or in the 
Parish House and a Red Cross flag is hung from 
the steeple. Any shell holes in the roofs and walls 
are stopped with sections of tenting. As we ap- 
proached Clamanges, we detected a sickening, 
subtle, sweetish odor which crept stealthily to us 
through the air and filled us with an insinuat- 
ing disgust. The Colonel said simply, "That is 
gangrene." 

The streets of the village were muddy and lit- 
tered, and there were innumerable ominous flies 

ioo 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

everywhere. The town was crammed with Ger- 
man wounded. In the church long rows of them, 
touching feet to head and arm to arm, so that the 
attendants had to step gingerly between as they 
made their slow way about. The neighboring 
peasant houses were packed full with the overflow. 
In the halls lay the bodies of men who had 
died of gangrene, and as no one had time to at- 
tend to the dead, the piles of them grew and in- 
creased. We were told that there were thirteen 
hundred wounded in the village, among whom 
labored sixty attendants. They were all severely 
wounded, since the Germans had dragged with 
them all their slightly wounded, these being good 
assets. 

What had once been a little rose garden was 
piled high with a gigantic heap of bloody accou- 
trements which had been taken from wounded 
men as they were brought in. Under a tree in a 
corner of the churchyard a surgeon had set up a 
big kitchen table which he used for operations; 
the ground underneath was black and caked. In a 
near by corner of the church walls was a great 
pile of boots and stained clothes which had been 

cut from shattered limbs, and I expect one might 

101 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

have discovered even more ghastly objects had one 

ventured to turn over the rags. The attendants 

were nearly all French, although two German 

doctors and several German orderlies had stayed 

behind with their wounded. All worked heroically 

to cope with their great task. 

In the rush of battle it had been impossible to 

obtain food for the wounded, so that for days these 

men had gone hungry, and one heard the agonizing 

sound of dying men crying piteously for bread. 

The French attendants themselves went hungry in 

order to give their charges such small pittances of 

food as were obtainable. We watched an orderly 

who entered the church with a single loaf of bread 

which had just been secured and which was to 

be divided among several hundred wounded. He 

used a great knife as if he hoped to make up for 

the smallness of the supply by the largeness of 

the implement. Slowly and with sober care he cut 

slice after slice, each one so thin that the light 

shone through it. Every head was turned toward 

him and each burning pair of eyes was fixed upon 

the precious bread with an expression of animal 

dumbness, which reminded one of the intent eyes 

of a hungry dog as it watches a hoped-for morsel. 

102 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

As he advanced step by step, the wounded 
stretched up shriveled hands, or propped them- 
selves on one elbow to make more appealing ges- 
tures, their faces all contorted by the pains the 
movement caused them. They made no sound, 
for their attention was too intently fixed upon that 
bread. One, however, who had been overlooked, 
burst into screams and wailings until the mistake 
had been properly remedied. We Americans held 
a Council of War and unanimously decided to 
contribute our jealously hoarded supply of pro- 
visions ; we thereby became as angels in the eyes 
of those poor creatures. A French attendant re- 
marked as he handed a sliver of our only loaf of 
bread to a shattered man: "II va mourir tout 
a l'heure, mais cela lui fera grand plaisir en 
mourant!" 

The dying are frightful sights, and parts of them 
are often already mortified, as they lie in the 
straw, entirely occupied with breathing. They 
breathe eternally little short breaths, a hundred 
or a hundred and ten to the minute, like some 
sort of pump. They wish passionately not to 
die, and yet they know with desperate certainty 
that they are going to die. They lie down there 

103 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

in a tiny, little black hell of their own and fight 
with all their might and main, feeling that they 
will die instantly if they skip one little short 
breath. (I was going to say they fight with all 
their soul and body, but they no longer really pos- 
sess either of these). They have no time to speak, 
or listen, or move, or be helped, as every parti- 
cle of energy must be used for the next re- 
spiration. A jumbled heap lies in the straw 
covered with a blanket to keep off the flies. An 
attendant looks at its side in search of the flutter- 
ing little pulsation of breath. If it is there, "he" 
is living; if all is still, "it" is dead, and they 
carry it out and dump it in the hall with the other 
bodies. 

The little village of Ecury-le-Repos had been 
deserted by every one but its Mayor, who mistook 
us for Germans, and as such faced us bravely and 
with dignity. He very correctly refused to be- 
lieve that we were not of the enemy until he had 
examined our papers. His village was not a 
pleasant sight. He said that it had been taken 
and retaken many times and that there had been 

fighting in its streets as recently as yesterday ; its 

104 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

houses were battered and rent by shells and many 
had burned down and still smouldered; no earth- 
quake could have ruined them more thoroughly. 
The narrow village streets were littered ankle deep 
with a muddy, rotting pot-pourri in which one de- 
tected broken glass, bits of brick, cartridges, roof 
slates, broken bottles, shreds of clothing, shells, 
fragments, shrapnel cases, and kepis. Dead men 
lay in the gutters, covered with filth to such an 
extent that one almost failed to recognize what 
they were. 

In their last retreat the Germans had dragged 
their desperately wounded into halls and doorways 
in order that they might be out from under foot, 
and there they still lay. Half of them were merci- 
fully already dead. We looked into one hallway 
only. Here amidst a stifling stench, five Germans 
were propped up; three were dead and the other 
two barely alive ; all were covered black with flies 
and the living and the dead were eaten by white, 
weaving masses of maggots. 

Ecury-le-Repos is situated in a little circular 
hollow, with elevated table-lands all around. 
Here where the table-lands begin to dip down, the 
Germans had defended themselves against the 

105 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

advancing French. As they faced southward 
toward the oncoming enemy, they had the village 
in its cup-like hollow at their backs. At one point 
German infantry to the number of about two 
hundred had been placed on the crest facing 
across the bare level plateau, while in front of them 
some two hundred and fifty paces distant was a 
pine wood through which the French were ad- 
vancing. The Germans had evidently had no 
time to entrench but had quickly lain down in 
.skirmish order in the outer edge of a potato field ; 
each soldier had then pushed up in front of him, as 
protection, a little heap of potatoes and loose 
earth. A hundred paces to the right of this Ger- 
man skirmish line, two mitrailleuses had been 
skillfully thrust forward some fifty yards in ad- 
vance, and concealed in small trenches hurriedly 
dug. They could thus fire across the front of 
their own infantry and take in the flank any French 
who advanced. This action was one of a series 
which had taken place along this line of hills. The 
German flanks were not unprotected, but owing to 
the fact that the country was much broken and 
obscured by woods, such a force would be partly 

hidden from its neighbors to the right and left, 

1 06 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

and largely independent in repelling any attack 
made against it. 

A body of French infantry three to four hundred 
strong had advanced to the edge of the woods, 
facing the Germans, and had there taken up a 
skirmish position. The opposing bodies had then 
fired at each other a collective total of about 
twenty -five thousand rounds across a perfectly 
flat field. We were able to estimate the number 
of men engaged on either side from the impressions 
which their feet, elbows, and bodies had made in 
the soft earth, and we could judge how many 
rounds per man had been fired by counting the 
little piles of empty cartridges which had accumu- 
lated beside each rifleman. When we arrived 
upon the scene the wounded had nearly all been 
removed, but the dead were still untouched, and 
we were able to see that, as a result of this 
fusillade of twenty-five thousand rounds, only 
three Germans and six Frenchmen had been killed 
outright. 

After this rifle contest, the French had made a 

bayonet charge across the open. The Germans 

had fired until the French had advanced about 

half way and had hit a score, after which they 

107 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

temporarily ceased firing and the French then 
promptly "charged home." The two German 
mitrailleuses were unperceived by the advancing 
French, and as the French passed them in flank, 
the mitrailleuses opened fire ; at the same moment 
the Germans suddenly fired a scattering rifle volley. 
Attacked in front and on the flank, every French- 
man but one was hit, and sixty dead still lay in a 
row across the field as if cut down by a mowing 
machine. The sole survivor of the fatal cross-fire 
was a boy with a tiny black moustache. Un- 
daunted, he had charged alone in among the 
Germans and had received many bayonets in his 
heroic body. He lay on his back among the 
German cartridges fifty yards ahead of the row of 
his dead comrades. 

Behind the crest of the plateau we could see 
the emplacements of four guns at intervals of 
about forty yards, but they had not been used in 
this engagement and may have been shelling some 
more distant objective. 

Before leaving this field we gathered a quantity 

of potatoes and put them in the German shell 

baskets which we had picked up earlier in the day, 

in order that our gift to the field hospital might 

1 08 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

not leave us totally without food. We felt rather 
unhappy at not being able to pay for them, but 
" a la guerre comme a la guerre. " 

Just outside of Fere Champenoise on the road 
running west toward Broussy-le-Grand, we came 
upon the scene of an action in which the casualties 
had been exceedingly heavy. The neighborhood 
was absolutely deserted and as the wounded had 
been removed and there were no peasants about 
we could find no one to elucidate for us what had 
taken place. The action was not easy to unravel 
and the following conclusions were unverified by 
any eyewitnesses. 

We, however, judged by the condition of the 
dead and other circumstantial evidence that the 
fight had taken place at the very beginning of 
the great battle — that is, on the morning of Tues- 
day, the 8th, when the French were slowly pushed 
back from the vicinity of Fere Champenoise. 
The road ran through the middle of an open field, 
with heavy forests on either side, some three 
hundred yards away to the north and south. A 
French regiment had evidently taken up a defen- 
sive position to the left of the road and parallel 

109 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

with it, thus facing the woods to the north and some 
four hundred yards away. These woods were held 
by a regiment of Imperial Guard and a battery 
of artillery had been placed some three hundred 
yards behind them. The Guards had advanced 
one hundred and fifty yards into the open and 
then formed a firing-line. In some inexplicable 
manner the} 7 - had accomplished this manoeuvre 
without casualties. 

The two firing-lines were thus facing one another 
across two hundred and fifty yards of open field; 
the men lying shoulder to shoulder were plainly 
visible to their opponents. The German firing- 
line was marked by nine dead. The shooting of 
the Guard was excellent and thus in marked 
contrast to the poor shooting of other German 
organizations which we had observed. The 
French position was marked by more than three 
hundred dead, and the roots and lower branches 
of some pine saplings near by were riddled with 
bullets; indeed, some of these had actually been 
cut down by rifle fire, and I estimated that there 
was on an average at least one bullet for every 
two square inches of bark. Nearly all the French 

must have been put out of action before the Ger- 

no 



THE BATTLE OP THE MARNE 

mans finally charged, for the latter had only some 
twenty men killed in crossing the open to the 
French position. This is such a small loss to 
suffer when pushing home a bayonet charge, that 
the only explanation would be that few French 
were left to resist this final dash. In one place 
there was a pile of eleven dead Frenchmen who 
had evidently been killed in a desperate last stand. 
Throughout this action the French had mani- 
festly stood their ground very stubbornly, despite 
desperate losses, and had at no time broken or re- 
treated. There were only ten dead behind their 
firing-line and these had been killed with the bay- 
onet while fighting in the open. Another French 
regiment adjacent to them, in some woods farther 
west, had suffered no less heavily, and the woods 
were here literally dotted with the bodies of the 
dead. Our conclusion was that all the Frenchmen 
had been put out of action. It should be remem- 
bered that the ratio of wounded to killed is at least 
four to one. Colonel Allen said that he could not 
imagine worse destruction than these two regiments 
suffered. Evidently it was part of the price the 
French army so willingly paid for their great victory. 



in 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

We followed along the Petit Morin and the 
marshes of St. Gond. Here not far from Soizy- 
aux-Bois had been a furious bayonet fight in 
which a French colonial brigade, had carried the 
German positions. At one point a regiment of 
Turcos had advanced across the Petit Morin and 
charged to the bare hill toward a long well-made 
trench held by a battalion of German infantry 
whose fire had not deterred them. As the Turcos 
closed in, the Germans jumped out of their trench 
and re-formed in a line behind it, but broke at the 
first shock of the Africans, who came on scream- 
ing, their knives and bayonets much in evidence. 
A scene of frightful carnage ensued as the rout 
spread along the hill. The Turcos chased the 
Germans over the fields and through neighboring 
woods, killing them right and left. The total 
casualties in the neighborhood must have been 
more than three thousand, the Germans being 
much the heavier losers. 

I have read of such bayonet fights, but have 
always doubted their possibility in modern war. 
I have supposed that in close-range fighting a few 
men might be bayoneted, but that the majority 
of the casualties would be from gunshot wounds. 

112 




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THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

In this melee, however, most of the wounds were 
inflicted with the bayonet, and frightful wounds 
they were. Many on both sides had been pierced 
through the face, neck, and skull. The head of one 
German officer who had not fled with his men, but 
had bravely fought on single-handed, had been 
completely transfixed by a bayonet, which had 
entered through the eagle on the front of his hel- 
met and passed through his skull and out behind. 

After passing through many scenes of horror, we 
arrived at the castle of Mondemont which is near 
Allemant, and caps the summit of a steep wooded 
hill overlooking the marshes of St. Gond. It was 
a Louis XV. chateau, but is now a mass of shattered 
ruins. Around it had been elaborate gardens with 
many paths, alleys, carp ponds, flower-beds, 
hedges, and walls. From its elevated position it 
commanded the valleys beneath. It had without 
much difficulty been captured by the Germans as 
they advanced southward, and when they later 
retreated to the north again they had left here a 
rearguard to hold back the victorious French. 

All through the disastrous afternoon of Wednes- 
day the 9th, these Germans had defended Monde- 
8 113 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

mont against a furious cannonade and in the face 
of infantry assaults which, in some cases, had to be 
repulsed with the bayonet. Meanwhile, the main 
German armies retreated many miles until on 
Thursday morning this heroic rearguard found 
itself hopelessly surrounded on all sides. The 
French commanders summoned the place to 
surrender, explaining that further resistance was 
madness, but were met by a firm refusal, where- 
upon the Germans were subjected to a most 
terrific bombardment by cannon, large and small. 
In all at least ten thousand shells were fired at the 
chateau until it was reduced to a pile of rubbish. 
Even the garden walls remained standing only in 
isolated spots, and the surrounding forest was so 
completely wrecked that great boughs and whole 
trees lay criss-crossed in an inextricable tangle. 

Near the chateau there was a field several acres 
in extent and in it alone we counted about a 
thousand craters which had been made by big 
shells. The road which passed in front of the 
chateau was full of great holes twenty feet in cir- 
cumference blown out of the solid macadam. 
After this bombardment, a desperate infantry 
assault rolled up the hill and captured it, but only 

114 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

after a frightful melee in which the defenders 
fought and died to the last man. I noticed a 
shutter remaining upon one window of the 
chateau which had been pierced by fifty-two 
bullets. By a singular chance there was one 
room which had been little damaged. In it 
as we entered there stood a table at which the 
German officers had been eating when interrupted 
by the final attack; their knives and forks lay on 
the plates, which still held meat and carrots, 
partly eaten, and wine half filled the glasses; two 
of the chairs had been hurriedly pushed back from 
the table, while a third, overturned, lay upon its 
side. 

Stinday, September ijth. We spent the night at 
Bar-sur-Seine, sleeping in the hallway of a little 
hotel, and next morning went to the headquarters 
of General JofTre which, during the battle, were 
at Chatillon-sur-Seine. 

We returned to the battlefields in the neighbor- 
hood of Fere Champenoise early in the afternoon. 

We entered Fere Champenoise for the second 
time after dark, meaning to spend the night there. 

115 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

The town was packed with transport wagons and 
troops. All the houses were dark, the only illumi- 
nation being from lamps on wagons and automo- 
biles which stood in the market-place and along 
the main highway through the town. 

It had rained nearly all day and was still raining, 
and although we were loath to sleep outdoors or in 
the automobile, we at first saw no possibility of 
finding lodgings elsewhere. Captain Parker and I 
left the machine and started to reconnoitre through 
the side streets. The rain, the low-hanging clouds, 
and the high walls of the houses, all combined 
to make the bottom of the deep narrow streets 
blacker than any blackness I have ever experienced. 
The darkness was so dense that it seemed to have 
body and solidity, and one walked as if totally 
blind. The streets were alive with invisible 
soldiers, whom one heard breathing in the damp 
darkness and with whom one continually collided. 
High above the roofs of the houses a distant glow 
was reflected upon the falling rain by fires where 
they were burning the dead. 

Few of the inhabitants had yet returned to the 

town and we were unable to find anyone who 

could tell us where to locate the Mayor. All the 

116 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

houses were tightly shuttered and nearly all were 
empty, though occasionally a faint suggestion of 
light showed through the crack under the door. 
When we beat a summons on such an entrance we 
never gained anything more satisfactory in the 
way of a response than a gruff and muffled state- 
ment that "la maison est deja toute pleine de 
soldats." We persevered, however, and our efforts 
were finally rewarded, for we at last met an old 
woman to whom we could explain our dilemma. 
She seemed interested in our plight and, pointing 
to a man who was approaching and whom we dis- 
cerned by the faint light of a dingy lantern which 
he was carrying, said: "Voila mon patron. Je 
lui expliquerai ce que c'est!" A whispered con- 
versation followed, and then we were introduced 
to M. Achille Guyot, one of the leading citizens of 
the town, a champagne manufacturer of promi- 
nence and a man who proved to be a splendid 
example of French fortitude and chivalry. 

In the darkness we groped for each other's 
hands, and M. Guyot, with the greatest politeness, 
said that he would be charmed to have us sleep 
beneath his roof. He apologized because he had 
little but the roof to offer since "Les Allemands 

ii7 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

ont tout bouleverse." He suggested hesitatingly 
that we should also sup with him before retiring, 
and again apologized, saying: "Les Allemands 
ont tout pris." We remarked that we possessed 
a great many potatoes and would gladly contribute 
them to increase the bulk of the repast. This 
greatly relieved his mind, as he confessed that he 
had almost nothing to offer, but since we had so 
many potatoes they would be gratefully accepted. 
We followed him to his residence, which proved 
to be a very large mansion with a great garden in 
front and a larger one behind. As we entered 
the house the rays of the lantern revealed a most 
extraordinary sight. All the villagers who had 
remained in town agreed that this house had been 
occupied by German officers and that in leaving 
they had carried out much loot. The Teuton 
taste has been chiefly for enamels and lingerie. 
The interior of the house looked more like a pig- 
sty than a human dwelling. The Germans had 
broken all locks and emptied the contents of all 
bureaus, closets, and desks upon the floor, the 
more easily to pick and choose what they wanted. 
The floors were covered ankle-deep in the resulting 

litter which was composed of everything from lace 

118 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

to daguerreotypes, from bric-a-brac to hosiery. 
The relics and treasures of past generations of the 
owner's family carpeted the house, until each room 
seemed in a worse state than the last, and the 
whole was altogether a most superlative mess. 
M. Guyot had shoveled paths through the differ- 
ent rooms as one shovels through several inches 
of newly fallen snow. 

We stood in amazement that anyone could so 
completely have turned upside down an orderly 
house. As an example of absolute disorder, the 
dining-room was a veritable work of art. The 
German orderlies had evidently prepared and 
served four or five meals to their officers. Each 
time they had set the table with fine linen and old 
china and then as soon as the repast was over had 
taken up the tablecloth by its edges and corners 
and had thrown it with the china, bottles, linen, 
tableware, dirty dishes, and remnants of food, 
into a corner of the room. At each succeeding 
meal the process had been repeated with a new 
setting of china and fresh linen from the nearly 
inexhaustible supplies with which the house was 
furnished. This was housekeeping reduced by 

German " efficiency" to its simplest terms. The 

119 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

same "efficiency" had been employed in the 
kitchen where each meal had been prepared with a 
fresh set of cooking utensils which, after use, had 
been piled up under the tables and sinks, together 
with such debris as potato peels and coffee grounds. 
Perhaps a good housekeeper would have been 
most disgusted by the condition of the kitchen ; to 
me the dining-room, where the post-mortems of 
meals were added to the results of pillaging, 
seemed the more shocking. 

The house contained a dozen large bedrooms 
and all the beds had been slept in by Germans, 
some of whom had not taken pains to remove 
their boots. M. Guyot told us we might sleep 
where we chose and showed us where the fresh 
linen was kept, apologizing for the fact that we 
would be obliged to make up our own beds. 

He introduced us to three French aviators who 
were already quartered in the house and who came 
in as we were preparing to depart for supper. 

They were Captain B , Chevalier de la Legion, 

Lieutenant the Vicomte de B , and their or- 
derly. The officers immediately took possession of 
the lantern and conducted us out into the gardens 
to behold the piles of broken bottles which the Ger- 

I20 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

mans had strewn about. They informed us that 
these were some of the remains of fifteen thousand 
bottles of champagne which had been taken by the 
invaders from the warehouse cellars of our host 
alone. M. Guyot had not volunteered this infor- 
mation, but now confirmed that fact and added 
with simplicity that his champagne business 
and the prosperity of his house would be much 
curtailed for some time to come. 

Our host's residence was in such disorder that 
he suggested that the supper table should be laid 
at the house of one of his employees who lived 
near-by in the village, and we all started together 
through the darkness, taking stock of our provi- 
sions as we walked. The French officers had tea 
and two loaves of bread which they had obtained 
from the Commissariat; M. Guyot, in the expecta- 
tion of having guests, had managed to amass three 
pigeons, five eggs, and several tomatoes, and 
we Americans excavated such endless quarts of 
potatoes from our automobile that the French- 
men amidst roars of laughter had cried "Assez! 
Assez!" 

Our host and his friends decided that the repast 
should be called a dinner and should be given in 

121 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

honor of the new France and of the glorious victory 
just won, the first to rest upon the French arms 
in more than sixty years. What more fitting, 
they asked, than that we neutrals should witness 

this celebration? The Vicomte de B busied 

himself with reciting the menu: entree, omelette 
parmentier; game, pigeon roti; plat de resistance — 
pommes de terre Marseillaise; Salade, tomate — 
not to speak of toast and tea. M. Guyot hinted 
darkly and mysteriously that he would attend to 
the wine list; we should have laughed at this had 
we not realized that a wine merchant who has lost 
his entire store of wine is not a fit subject for 
jest. 

When we took our places at dinner, our host 
sat at one end of the table and Colonel Allen at the 
other. The former then explained that a little 
cellar where he kept his most precious wines had 
been undiscovered by the invaders and that the 
wine list would include the precious champagne 
of '93 and a very old Bordeaux. His aged em- 
ployee, who had served the meal, then entered 
amid loud acclamations, her arms full of bottles, 
and we drank to "La France" in Bordeaux of the 
color of a ruby. 

122 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

The table was set with wooden-handled knives 
and forks, as no others remained, and was lighted 
by candles set in bottles and broken candlesticks; 
no gas, electricity, or kerosene having survived 
the invasion. The French aviators had in their 
possession five spiked helmets which they had 
taken as trophies from the heads of dead Germans. 
It was suggested that since all ordinary means of 
lighting had been destroyed by these same Ger- 
mans, their casques might fittingly be used as 
candlesticks, and each bear a taper upon its point 
This suggestion was about to be put into effect 
when M. Guyot, whose business had been so 
recently ruined and whose house had been ruth- 
lessly pillaged by these invaders, quietly made 
objection and said that it was not fitting or proper 
that the headgear of fallen soldiers should be used 
as candelabra. 

Monday, September 14th. One's respect and 
affection for horses is greatly increased after 
seeing them in war. They are there so es- 
sentially necessary. They share so patiently 
and faithfully on almost equal terms the good 
and ill fortune of the men; they work with their 

123 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

masters, go into battle with them, and the two 
die side by side, killed by the same shell. It is a 
stirring example of unity to see men and horses 
straining and striving and pulling together to get 
a gun out of difficulties. The horses do not under- 
stand what it is all about and going to war was 
not of their choice, but the same things may usu- 
ally be said of the men beside whom they live and 
die. 

The feeling which the French soldiers on the 
firing-line have for the Germans is very different 
from the bitterness one finds in the civilian pop- 
ulation of France. We have heard more than 
one French soldier say in a voice tinged with ad- 
miration, " Ah, ce sont de bons soldats! " At the 
front and in the trenches one gets down to basic 
principles and realizes that "the other man" is a 
fellow human being and not something with horns 
and a forked tail. The French soldier is grimly 
determined to go through the war to the bitter 
end and to accept nothing short of a complete 
victory, but at the same time he realizes that this 
mutual slaughter is indeed a sorry business. I shall 
never forget the face of a serious French Territorial 

soldier of forty with whom I spoke today. He 

124 



THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

was one of a burying squad on the scene of the 
charge of the African brigade near Soizy-aux-Bois. 
Nine hundred dead were being buried in one big 
trench and as I came to inspect it, my Territorial 
and a comrade were about to pick up a dead 
German who lay face down in a muddy field, with 
arms outstretched. A hundred others lay close 
about us. I offered the Territorial cigarettes and, 
as he took one, he indicated the field about us 
with a sweep of his arm and said sadly: "If 
Guillaume could have foreseen all this, do you 
think that he, one man, would have begun this 
war?" And he looked down with an expression 
full of sorrow and brotherly compassion at the 
dead German who lay at his feet. 

In the four days of our trip we have had in- 
numerable punctures and six blow-outs, in conse- 
quence of which we were finally forced to return 
to Paris today. The Germans raided all the wine 
cellars throughout this whole region and when 
they retreated left broken bottles along all the 
streets and roads. 



125 



CHAPTER V 

ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

Monday, September 14th, The equipment of 
the German soldier is in every detail a marvel of 
perfection. This impresses me more than any 
other single element of the war excepting only the 
bravery of the French, and the imperturbable 
sang froid of the English. A striking example of 
this perfection is the spiked helmet. Contrary 
to appearance, it is not heavy, weighing indeed 
scarcely more than a derby hat. Everyone who 
picks one up for the first time exclaims in astonish- 
ment, ' ■ How light it is ! ' ' These helmets are made 
of lacquered leather, are nearly indestructible, 
shed water perfectly, and give excellent ventilation 
to the head by means of a clever arrangement of 
holes under the flange of the spike. They also 
shield the eyes and the back of the head from the 
sun, and are strong enough to break a heavy blow. 

The German uniforms are of a light gray with 
126 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

a slight green tinge, and are virtually invisible 
against the greenish mist-gray fields of Europe, 
excepting only when the sun is behind to project 
a deep shadow. 

The German bayonet is a formidable weapon 
with a heavy double-edged blade twenty inches 
long. Both edges are extremely sharp. I easily 
sharpened pencils with one which I picked up. 

The German knapsacks are made of cowhide 
with the hair left on, the grain of the hair pointing 
downward to shed rain. The hair may get wet, 
but the leather seldom and the contents never. 

The German military boot comes half-way up 
the calf of the leg and the trouser is tucked into 
its top. They are without laces and pull on to the 
foot like the American "rubber boot. " They are 
made of heavy, undyed leather, singularly soft 
and pliable, and thoroughly waterproof. The 
soles are shod with hobnails, but the boot is not 
very heavy. We often noted dead Germans who 
were bootless, their footgear having been appro- 
priated by some victorious Frenchman, who had 
left near-by his own less desirable shoes. 

The three-compartment wicker shell-containers 
in which field-gun shells are carried from caisson 

127 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

to gun are as carefully and neatly made as an 
expensive tea-basket. We saw thousands of them 
lying about the battlefields and carefully examined 
scores, sliding shells in and out of them as a test. 
Invariably we found that the shells went in and 
out smoothly and without effort, and yet always 
fitted snugly. There was never either the slightest 
friction or the least loose-play. This nicet}' meant 
that the variation in an interior diameter of three 
inches was certainly less than one thirty-second 
of an inch. Wicker-work constructed with such 
unvarying accuracy is truly marvelous. 

Paris, Tuesday, September 15th. Back in Paris, 
we are trying to piece bits of evidence together 
into a clear picture and to draw sound conclusions 
from what we have seen. We do not yet know 
what the battle which we have studied will be 
named, but we ourselves call it the Battle of Fere 
Champenoise. This is, however, an unsatisfac- 
tory title, as it is too cumbersome and not compre- 
hensive enough, for Fere Champenoise was only 
the most intense and critical point in a series of 
actions extending from Chantilly to Verdun, over 

a varied and winding front of about one hundred 

128 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

and ninety miles. We have no means of knowing 
how far the Germans have been driven back, but 
they are across the Aisne and other Attaches tell 
us that frightful fighting is going on at Soissons 
where the pursuing Allies are attempting to throw 
large forces across the river. On our way home 
yesterday, moreover, we ourselves heard much 
shooting in the direction of Rheims. 

My personal conclusions about the battle are 
based upon a thousand bits of information care- 
fully pieced together into a mosaic. First of 
all we ourselves examined the territory included 
between the Marne, the Seine, and a line from 
Mery-sur-Seine through Arcis to Vitry-le-Francois, 
and made certain digressions across the Marne to 
the northeast of Paris. We examined the battle- 
fields while they were comparatively fresh, and 
supplemented our observations by innumerable 
conversations with the French troops and civilians, 
and with German prisoners. At the Embassy we 
obtained from other Attaches many bits of reliable 
information about the fighting directly north of 
Paris and about the rearguard actions between 
the Marne and the Aisne. 

Up to the time of this battle the German plan 
9 129 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

of campaign had worked out almost perfectly. 
The Franco-German border is due east of Paris, 
and the French mobilization took place there 
behind the fortresses of Verdun, Toul, Epinal, and 
Belfort. 

The Belgian frontier is north of Paris and the 
unexpected and treacherous advance of the Ger- 
man armies through that neutral country brought 
them immediately behind the French line of 
mobilization. The violation of Belgium permitted 
the Germans to advance into France before the 
Allies could reorganize into an effective resistance 
against this unexpected attack. It is to be re- 
membered that a mobilization which it has taken 
years to plan out and which involves millions of 
men and their equipment cannot be changed at a 
moment's notice. Had the Germans attacked 
across the Franco-German border, they would 
have found the French army awaiting them behind 
the fortresses of Verdun, Toul, and Epinal, and it 
is almost certain that they would never have 
arrived within two hundred marching miles of 
Paris. No one knew this better than the German 
General Staff. 

Had it not been for the unexpected and heroic 
130 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

resistance of Belgium, and the masterly retreat of 
the small British army, Germany's foul blow 
might have resulted in the capture of Paris toward 
the end of August. These two things, combined 
with a desperate retarding action executed along 
the Aisne by several French corps, delayed the 
Germans long enough to enable General Joflre 
to organize and fight a single battle upon which 
everything was staked. To lose it would have 
meant utter ruin, for France has faced no such 
crisis since Charles Martel repelled the Saracens 
at Tours in 732. To win would mean that the 
Teutons' blow-below-the-belt had been survived 
and that a recommencement of the war upon 
something like even terms would be possible. 

In preparing for the battle the French placed 
powerful forces in the great fortress of Verdun, and 
also in and around the entrenched camp of Paris. 
Their field army extended between the two from 
Paris through La Ferte, Esternay, Sezanne, and 
Sommesous to Vitry-le-Frangois, and from thence 
bent northeastward to Verdun. Thus their two 
flanks were strong and menacing and their center, 
about one hundred and eighty miles in length, 
bent southward and was slightly concave. 

131 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

It is evident that in this battle the Germans 
could gain nothing by making their main attack 
against Paris or Verdun, but that if they could rout 
the field army between the two, they might as an af- 
termath sweep round behind each city and attack 
it from all sides, using for the purpose the heavy 
artillery which had under similar circumstances 
and with such celerity battered down Liege, Namur, 
Longwy, and Maubeuge. Therefore, the logical 
thing was for the Germans to attempt to break the 
French center. This operation was somewhat haz- 
ardous as there was danger that the French might 
launch a powerful flank attack from either Verdun 
or Paris. To attack the center was, in effect, some- 
thing like thrusting a dagger into a lion's mouth in 
the effort to cut his throat. It was necessary to 
hold back the jaws Verdun and Paris, whilst attack- 
ing the vulnerable throat at Fere Champenoise. 

To accomplish this, Verdun was kept so busy 
by violent attacks made upon three sides that its 
army had no time to think of any offensive move- 
ment. The German defense against the French 
right thus in reality took the form of an active 
attack, a feasible method because Verdun is 
near the Franco-German frontier,, being in fact 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

less than forty miles from the German fortress 
and mobilization center of Metz. 

To protect their right from any flank attacks 
which might be hurled against it from Paris, the 
Germans placed a strong army under von Kluck 
in front of that city to hold the French left in 
check, as a boxer in a clinch holds back his oppo- 
nent's left arm. Von Kluck fought his way to a 
position approximately defined by a line through 
Creil, Senlis, Nanteuil-le-Haudouin, and Lizy-sur- 
Ourg. His cavalry advanced even to Chantilly 
and Crecy. His army was not intended to have 
any part in the main German offensive, its sole 
duty being to protect the German right from any 
attack in flank which might be prepared and 
launched from the entrenched camp of Paris. 
Von Kluck was not to attack Paris, but to protect 
the Germans from Paris, and this he successfully 
did. 

No greater mistake can be made than to suppose 
that the German retreat to Soissons and Rheims 
was precipitated by any victory over von Kluck. 
A violent and heavy attack was, it is true, launched 
against him on or about the evening of September 
6th and was steadily maintained from that time 

133 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

forward. At first he was pushed back for a number 
of miles by the violence of this assault, but his 
counter attacks soon regained most of the ground 
lost. Thus he advanced on the 5th, was pushed 
back a little on the 7th, but advanced again on the 
8th, driving the Allies before him. On the 9th 
his left flank was threatened by the British and he 
again retreated a little to consolidate his position. 
While so doing he received news that the German 
army assigned to carry out the main offensive in 
the neighborhood of Fere Champenoise had been 
repulsed and was already beginning the retreat 
which later at many points turned into a rout, 
and he then continued his own retreat until he 
reached the Aisne. 

Von Kluck advanced or retreated short dis- 
tances as the fortunes of the battle varied, but 
on the whole successfully maintained his ground 
and only retreated for good when the Germans' 
principal attack had thus been defeated at another 
and distant point. After the 6th he was at all 
times heavily engaged and his losses and those of 
his opponents were excessively heavy. 

Since the battle of the Marne there has been 
an almost universal tendency to declare that von 

134 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

Kluck was defeated and that Paris was thereby 
saved. This verdict, though erroneous, is easily 
explained. Von Kluck was nearest Paris, "every- 
one" was in Paris, and in an action extending over 
hundreds of miles "everyone" saw only what was 
nearest to him and drew his conclusions from that 
alone. The losses in von Kluck' s army and in the 
armies opposed to it were so heavy that it is small 
wonder people concluded that they waged the 
main battle. In truth, these losses were probably 
heavier than those of any previous battle since 
ancient times. I wish to emphasize again that 
von Kluck did not attack Paris and had no inten- 
tion of so doing, but that Paris attacked him and 
that he held this attack in check until it was 
no longer necessary to do so, since the German 
strategy had failed at other points. 

Let us now consider the main German offensive 
and its repulse. The French center had taken a 
position on a plateau of rolling hills in many 
places covered with pine forests, while several 
large swamps lay in front of them. This coun- 
try was for several weeks defended by Napo- 
leon in his despairing campaign of 1 8 14. He had 

135 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

appreciated its strategic value and somewhat 
developed its defensive possibilities. In recent 
years the French had often held manoeuvres in 
this area and had a permanent manoeuvre camp 
at Mailly, which was actually within the battle- 
field of Fere Champenoise. 

The German troops which were to make the 
great offensive movement against the French 
center crossed the Marne in the section from Eper- 
nay to Chalons without serious opposition. Their 
main attack was launched against the Ninth 
Army of the French under General Foch along a 
front of about fifteen miles, and probably close to 
a quarter of a million Teutons were engaged. We 
saw dead Germans belonging to the ioth, 12th, 
19th, ioth Reserve, and a Guard Corps. 

The first contact took place at Fere Champen- 
oise at three o'clock on the morning of the 8th, 
when heavy forces advancing through the night 
along the roads from Vertus and Chalons fell 
upon the French who were encamped in the town 
and drove them out. The Germans continued 
victorious throughout the day of the 8th, driving 
the stubbornly resisting French back from the 
line through Sommesous, Fere Champenoise, and 

I3 6 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

Sezanne until, when the battle lulled late at night 
after eighteen hours of combat, the French held a 
line through the villages of Mailly, Gourgancon, 
Corroy, and Linthelles. 

The fighting was very fierce, and terrible 
losses were sustained by both sides as the posses- 
sion of every foot of territory was hotly contested. 
The French showed steadiness, determination, and 
efficiency under the most trying conditions and 
under the most violent and overwhelming attacks. 
We saw few signs or indications of any disorder or 
weakness on their part. The Germans experienced 
particularly heavy losses in driving the French 
from positions near the villages of Oeuvy and 
Montepreux, while the French suffered most 
heavily in the neighborhoods of Gourgancon and 
Corroy. Very little entrenching was done by 
either side, as both armies were constantly shifting, 
and the few trenches which were constructed had 
evidently been hurriedly built at night. 

On the 9th the Germans began the day with 
further successes and apparently had forced a 
marked French retreat. At noon they considered 
the battle as good as won. They had, however, 
apparently had no time to entrench or to con- 

137 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

solidate their forces, when, early in the afternoon, 
General Foch suddenly ordered an attack by all 
his forces. For six weeks the French had labored 
through a losing campaign and had just fought 
through thirty-six hours of steady defeat, and 
yet they turned about on the instant and attacked 
the astonished Germans with a dash which could 
not have been surpassed by the troops of the 
First Empire at the height of a victory. They 
would not be denied, but attacked and attacked 
until the Germans were overwhelmed. We saw 
fields where charging battalions had apparently 
been put out of action up to the last man without 
deterring that last man from advancing. By 
evening the French had retaken all the ground 
which they had lost in the previous thirty-six 
hours, and on the morning of the ioth their offen- 
sive was resumed with unabated fury and un- 
faltering self-sacrifice. No number of casualties 
could stop them and in places the retreat of the 
Germans became a rout. They left their wounded 
upon the battlefields and abandoned their hospi- 
tals, caissons, and supplies. Especially furious rear- 
guard actions were fought in the neighborhood of 
Pierre-Morains and Coizard and at Mondement. 

138 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

On the night of the ioth the German army 
pulled itself together, and on the nth, under the 
protection of magnificently executed rearguard 
actions which held up the determined pursuit of 
the French, retreated in good order to the Marne 
and across it. On the 12th they reached the Aisne 
and have since been endeavoring to make a stand 
on the farther side of Rheims. 

The most conservative French officers with 
whom we talked estimated that the total casual- 
ties of both sides in the fighting near Fere Cham- 
penoise amounted to at least one hundred and 
fifty thousand. Some thought it was as high as 
two hundred thousand, and I am inclined to this 
latter figure. Perhaps we saw the field in its 
entirety more thoroughly than did they. Cer- 
tainly they were busy with many other affairs, 
whereas we had nothing other to do than study 
and estimate. 

Had the German attack succeeded in breaking 
the French center, the French army would have 
been cut in two and both remnants would have 
been compelled to retreat in order to save them- 
selves from ruinous flank attacks. In retreating 
they would have been obliged to leave Verdun and 

139 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Paris each to take care of itself, and the German 
armies could have swung about to surround and 
lay siege to either or both of them. 

As far as we could observe, the German attack 
at Fere Champenoise had been unsupported by 
any heavy artillery. This was probably a con- 
tributing cause of their defeat, as was also their 
arrogant over-confidence in themselves and their 
under-estimation of their enemy. The French 
won the battle because their field artillery was su- 
perior and because, man for man, they outfought 
the Germans. Having staked the fate of their 
families and of their beloved patrie upon a single 
throw, the French gained one of the most des- 
perate battles in the world's history by the cool- 
ness and dogged determination of their chiefs and 
by the sublime tenacity and self-sacrifice of their 
soldiers. These outdid the best traditions of their 
race. At command they threw their lives away 
as a man throws away a trifle, and to meet new 
conditions they developed new qualities with 
which they have not previously been credited, 
qualities of stubborn scientific stolidity. They 
out-Germaned the Germans in the way their 
organization withstood the shock and wrack 

140 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

of battle. It was the German machine which 
broke down first. On that field a new France 
was born. Let no German ever again say that 
she is effete. It was purely a French victory. 
This is no aspersion upon the Belgians and the 
British; the slight part which they played in this 
battle is explained by their small numbers. At 
Liege and Namur, at Mons and St. Quentin they 
helped win for France a fighting chance behind the 
Marne. All hail to them for that ! 

During our trip we found no evidence of Ger- 
man acts deserving to be called "atrocities. " 
The word "atrocity" has been so carelessly used 
that it will be useful to re-define what that word 
means in relation to war. It should be limited 
to instances where unnecessary violence is used 
toward the enemy's soldiers and civilians. It has 
a meaning distinct from the inevitable destruction 
and vandalism which seem to be necessary integral 
parts of all wars. The burning and destroying of 
buildings by shell-fire or for reasons of military 
expediency and the confiscation of food supplies 
for military purposes are allowed by all rules of 
war. The use of the word "atrocity" should be 
limited to such acts as the killing of prisoners, the 

141 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

mutilation of civilians, and the violation of women. 
Of such deeds we personally found no instance, 
although we carefully cross-questioned the in- 
habitants of many towns which had been occupied 
by Germans. 

Food and wine had been pretty generally con- 
fiscated, a thing to be expected; also we found 
several instances of pillaging in which especially 
desirable articles had been carried off. Wanton 
breakage was rare and not extensive, and in most 
cases appeared to have been more mischievous 
than malicious. It was probably due to a some- 
what too liberal use of pillaged wine. In general, 
the worst charges against the Germans in France 
were that they had been exceedingly rude and 
boorish. There were, however, some instances 
which came to my notice where German officers 
had shown consideration for the civilians, had 
politely apologized for their unwelcome but 
''necessary'* intrusion into French families, and 
had carefully paid for their board and lodging. 
We talked with several French surgeons who were 
captured early in the war and had since, according 
to The Hague rules, been returned to France. 
These all acknowledged the consideration and 

142 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

good care which their captured wounded had re- 
ceived from the Germans. 

When the Germans were retreating northward 
towards Rheims after their defeat in the Battle of 
the Marne, notices (about twenty by thirty inches) 
printed on green paper were posted in the streets 
of the city, of which the following is a literal trans- 
lation: 

"Proclamation. 

"In case a combat should take place today or in 
the immediate future in the environs of Rheims or 
within the city itself, the inhabitants are fore- 
warned that they must remain absolutely in- 
active and must not attempt in any way to take 
part in the battle. They must not attempt to 
attack either isolated German soldiers or detach- 
ments of the German army. It is hereby officially 
forbidden to construct barricades, or to tear up the 
streets in such a manner as to hamper the move- 
ments of our troops. In a word, it is forbidden to 
undertake any act whatsoever which might be in 
any manner a hindrance to the German army. 

"In order thoroughly to insure the security of 
143 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

the German troops and to act as sureties for the 
inactivity of the population of Rheims, the per- 
sonages named below have been seized as hostages 
by the General commanding the German army. 
At the least sign of disorder these hostages will be 
hanged. Also the city will be entirely or partly 
burned and its inhabitants hanged if any infrac- 
tions whatsoever of the above orders are committed. 

"On the other hand, if the city remains ab- 
solutely quiet, the hostages and inhabitants will 
be protected by the German army. 

"By order of the German Authorities, 

"The Mayor, Dr. Laught. 

"Rheims, September 12, 1914. " 

Below was appended a list of names and ad- 
dresses of ninety-one leading citizens, officials, and 
ecclesiastics, and, as if that were not enough, this 
list was finished by the words "and others. " 

Paris, Thursday, September 17th. During my 
absence at the Battle of the Marne last week, the 
powers-that-be at the Embassy decided that I was 
too much needed in Paris for the German-Aus- 
trian affairs to be allowed to go to the front again. 

144 




O 

w 
Q 

o 
o 

rs 

o 

w 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

Therefore, when another expedition departed to- 
day, I was not permitted to be one of the party. 
On our trip I took rough field notes during the 
daytime and sat up at night into the early morning 
hours in order to expand these jottings into an 
accurate and comprehensive diary. I am now 
arranging this material into a report to be for- 
warded to Washington. 

The whole "deuxieme etage" of the Chancellerie 
is now given over to the Austrian, German, and 
Hungarian affairs. The arrangement of rooms is 
the same as in the American Chancellerie on the 
floor below. Mr. Percival Dodge, ex-first-assist- 
ant Secretary of State, is now head of the depart- 
ment and occupies the room over Ambassador 
Herrick. I have the room over the First Secre- 
tary, and Mr. Hazeltine the room over the Second 
Secretary. Lieutenant Donait is to be chief of 
the office staff, which consists of three stenogra- 
phers and two messengers. We have, in addition, 
three personal stenographers. This arrangement 
will be a great improvement, as our rooms on the 
ground floor were much too cramped for the 

volume of business. 

145 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Monday, September 21st. The immense amount 
of effective work accomplished under Mr. Her- 
rick would have been impossible had he not 
been so ably supported by the two Secretaries of 
the Embassy, Mr. Bliss and Mr. Frazier, past- 
masters of the intricate technique of their pro- 
fession. In the emergency of the war crisis the 
usefulness of the numerous subordinate members 
of the Embassy staff absolutely depended upon 
the skill and patience with which these two 
Secretaries trained them for the work of the various 
departments to which they were assigned, and 
prevented any divergence from correct diplomatic 
methods. It is most fortunate that our foolish 
American habit of replacing Ambassadors when- 
ever some one else has a stronger political "pull" 
does not extend to our first and second secretaries. 

Five of the younger men of the Embassy have 
formed a little luncheon club for the purpose of 
exchanging news and discussing and studying the 
military situation. They are Lieut. Boyd of the 
Cavalry, Lieut. Hunnicutt of the Artillery, Harry 
Dodge, the Ambassador's private Secretary, Lieut. 
Donait of the Infantry and Ordnance Depart- 
ments, and myself. We meet each noon at a little 

146 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

pension near the Embassy and there we argue 
and debate for an hour or more. These daily 
conferences give us a much better comprehension 
of the war as a whole and a more exact knowledge 
of its important details. We have all been more or 
less at the front and usually some one of us has 
just returned with first-hand data as to what is 
going on at the moment. Whenever any out- 
sider is discovered who has recent war news 
of value, we invite him to luncheon and pro- 
ceed to cross- question him in general and in 
particular. 

Wednesday, September 23d. A little sadly I took 
supper this evening at the Cafe du Commerce 
where the members of the atelier used to meet in 
the days of student life. As I was eating, who 
should walk in and sit down beside me but my 
friend Daumal, sous-massier of the atelier when 
war broke out, whom I had not seen since he 
departed for the front as a private. 

He is now Sergeant Daumal of the First Line 
Regiment, wounded at Longwy and just out of the 
hospital, homeward bound on a two weeks' con- 
valescent leave. As he described it, "une de ces 

147 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

marmites a, 28-centimetres" had exploded a little 
distance from him. Although he had not been 
struck by any fragments, the shock had rendered 
him so thoroughly unconscious that for a day he 
had been passed over by the ambulance orderlies 
as dead and had finally been discovered by a bury- 
ing squad to be not in need of a grave but of a 
hospital. 

The bombardment of Rheims Cathedral has 
stirred France to indignation, but apparently not 
nearly as much as it has stirred the outside world. 
The capacity of the French for being "stirred to 
indignation" has lost some of its elasticity by this 
time. It is an action so vivid, so net, so concise, 
that it turns the sympathies of neutrals more than 
a thousand "routine" accounts of burnings and 
killings. They bombarded Rheims Cathedral! 
These four words need no elaboration. I myself 
find it difficult to keep that neutral equilibrium 
which is necessary in an Attache who wishes to 
observe as much and as correctly as possible. 
Whitney Warren, the architect, and several 
Attaches are to be sent to Rheims in a day or 

two to make an investigation. 

148 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

Sunday, September 27th. I examine indigent 
Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians every morn- 
ing, and during the afternoon take special cases 
to the police, and write up accounts. 

Today Paris had another visit from a German 
aeroplane which threw the usual three bombs. 
One of them fell in the Avenue du Trocadero near 
the Embassy. It just missed demolishing the 
Ambassador and Mr. Frazier who were in an 
automobile on their way to inspect the buildings 
and grounds of the German Embassy. They had 
driven over the spot only two minutes before the 
bomb struck. I was at the same time on my way 
to the Embassy, having met them near the Pont 
d'Alma. I passed along the avenue a minute 
later and had just turned the corner when the 
bomb fell, killing an old man and tearing a leg off 
a little girl. The day was very cloudy and the 
aviator was above the clouds; for this reason no 
one seems to have discovered him and he must 
have thrown his bomb at random. 

Monday, September 28th. At lunch to-day 
in the Cafe Royal I overheard a Frenchman re- 
mark that although he and all his compatriots 

149 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

greatly esteemed Mr. Herrick, it would never- 
theless have been an excellent service against 
the enemy had he tactfully allowed himself 
to be annihilated by the German bomb which 
missed him yesterday. Later in the afternoon I 
took tea with Mr. Herrick at the Chancelleries 
and he was much amused when I recounted to 
him this example of a somewhat equivocal 
good-will. 

Tuesday, September 29th. The damage to 
Rheims Cathedral was largely the result of fire. 
The Germans had, during the time they held the 
city, converted it into a hospital; they had stacked 
the chairs against the walls and covered the floor 
deep with straw upon which to lay their wounded. 
During the spring and summer the front fagade 
had been undergoing repairs and was covered 
with heavy wooden scaffolding similar to that 
which has for several years disfigured St. Sulpice 
in Paris. The Cathedral was very famous for its 
choir-stalls and other wood-carving, of which 
there was a great quantity, and the roof which 
covered the vaulting was held up by a forest of 
great timbers many centuries old. 

150 



ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 

After the Germans had been driven out of the 
city they bombarded it from the hills outside, and 
their shells lit the straw on the Cathedral floor. 
Over it the fire ran swiftly, ignited the chairs 
piled against the walls, and then spread to the 
great masses of carved woodwork; finally the 
scaffolding and roof caught fire and the famous 
old Cathedral burned in one great conflagration. 
It has been particularly famous for three things: 
its woodwork, its front fagade, and its stained- 
glass windows. The woodwork went up in smoke, 
the front facade was all scorched and disinte- 
grated by the intense heat so that the surface of 
the stone detail is blowing off in fine dust, while 
the glass to the last particle was shattered by the 
concussions of bursting shells. The Cathedral 
stands like a great skeleton of its former self. Its 
flesh, as it were, is gone although few of its bones 
are broken. 

Saturday, October 3d. This is the first war 
in modern times in which whole nations have 
gone to battle; in this conflict every man in a 
nation is a soldier. In Napoleon's day France 
had about the same population — forty millions — 

151 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

that she now has, but Napoleon's professional 
armies numbered, at most, only two hundred 
thousand men, while today France has put fifteen 
or twenty times as many in the field. In the 
present war, when an army sustains aic per cent, 
loss it is not merely 10 per cent, of the army, but 
actually of the able-bodied men of the nation. 

Wednesday, October ?th. A German aeroplane 
again threw bombs on Paris today. 

Thursday, October 8th. Another Taube came 
today and threw bombs in the neighborhood of the 
Gare du Nord. These machines in flight look 
very much like sparrow-hawks and have a 
singularly sinister appearance. 

Sunday, October nth. We had a record-break- 
ing flock of Taubes today when a number came 
together and dropped about twenty bombs. Their 
combined score was twenty-two people killed and 
wounded; as usual, all women, children, and old 
men. 



152 



CHAPTER VI 

THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 

Paris, Monday, October 12th. In writing about 
the German, Austrian, and Hungarian subjects of 
whom we have had charge, I have spoken of them 
en masse. In reality there have been many cases 
in whom I have been personally interested and to 
whose safety I have given much time. Their 
history alone would fill a book. One of these is the 
case of the Countess X., member of an old and 
powerful Hungarian family. 

The Count, her husband, was desperately ill in 
Paris when the war broke out and he was kept 
alive only through the devoted care of his wife. 
We arranged with the French authorities that the 
Countess might remain in Paris with her husband, 
although all other Hungarian people were, without 
exception, being shipped off to detention camps. 
Later the Countess twice received notice from the 
Prefecture that she was to be immediately im- 

153 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

prisoned, and each time by enlisting the personal 
assistance of Ambassador Herrick I managed to 
have the decree delayed. 

The children of the family, of whom there were 
seven under ten years of age, were living at a 
chateau on the French coast, at Paris-Plage, near 
Boulogne. When the German army began to 
sweep towards the coast in a seemingly irresistible 
flood, the Countess came to me to say how fearful 
she felt for the safety of her children, left in the 
care of servants and governesses. Yesterday, when 
the fall of Antwerp was confirmed and when even 
the official announcements went so far as to talk 
of fighting in the neighborhood of Arras, she came 
again. I went to Mr. Herrick and asked if I 
might be allowed to go to the coast and bring the 
children back to Paris. The permission was the 
more readily granted because there were several 
other errands to be done in the same direction, 
notably to carry communications to our Consular 
Agent in Amiens, who had remained in that city 
during the German occupation and from whom 
little had since been heard. 

The necessary permits have been obtained and 
these will incidentally allow me to see something 

154 



THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 

of the front on my way north. I expect to leave 
this evening. 

Two machines will be needed to bring back the 
children and their attendants. There are several 
young Americans who have given their services 
and the use of their private automobiles for 
Embassy service. On all previous expeditions I 
have been conducted by Melvin Hall. He is at 
present assigned to other business, but I have 
secured the services of another volunteer chauffeur, 
Francis Colby. I shall travel in his touring-car 
and bring back in it the older children and their 
English governess. The second machine, a large 
limousine, will be driven by the French chauffeur 
of Countess X., and into it I shall pack the smaller 
children and their two nurses. 

The condition of the front along which we must 
pass for eighty miles is as follows : the battle of the 
Aisne has now turned into a race for the coast; 
each army is trying to outflank the other, the 
Germans, according to present indications, getting 
much the better of the contest. Everyone's 
attention seems to be concentrated for the moment 
on Calais, and the Allies evidently feel that the 

155 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

chief danger point is there. I notice with spe- 
cial concern, however, that farther south the Ger- 
man army is at Bethune thrusting out a wedge 
toward Abbeville, on the coast, only thirty-eight 
miles away. If they can advance these thirty- 
eight miles they will win not only all the triangle 
containing Nieuport, Calais, and Boulogne, but 
will cut off such of the Allied armies as are now 
concentrated in this area, and also radically 
shorten their own lines. Their front, as it now 
extends from Compiegne to Holland, measures 
nearly two hundred miles. If reorganized from 
Compiegne to the coast at Abbeville, it would be 
less than sixty-five miles. Of course the Allies 
fully appreciate this danger and are guarding 
against it as best they can, but I agree with 
Countess X. that the sooner we snatch her children 
out of the threatened area the better. 

At the Front, Tuesday, October ijth. We left 
Paris last evening at half-past six and at first 
made only slow progress owing to heavy traffic, 
worn-out roads, and destroyed bridges. We 
stopped for supper in poor, wrecked Senlis. This 
town is no farther from the gates of Paris than 

156 



THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 

Van Cortlandt Park in New York is from the 
Battery, and yet the German armies were in 
Senlis in September, battles raged in its streets, 
shells burst in its houses and destroyed whole 
blocks. Indeed, one of the fiercest fights of the 
war took place at night in its streets when, during 
the attack made by the garrison of Paris upon von 
Kluck's army, troops were hurriedly rushed out of 
Paris in trams, wagons, and taxicabs to fall pell- 
mell upon the Germans who occupied Senlis. 
French colonial infantry played a large part in 
this conflict. A weird and awful sight it must 
have been: taxicabs and automobiles from Paris 
charging up the streets vomiting bullets in all 
directions, houses catching fire from the bursting 
shells, and by the light of their flames the men of 
both armies fighting hand to hand, chasing one 
another through the doors and windows of burn- 
ing and collapsing houses, or making desperate 
stands behind dead horses, street-barricades, 
or wrecked taxicabs. It is said that in every such 
melee Turcos were to be seen exulting in their 
favorite sport, close-range fighting. 



157 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

After supper we passed through Fleurines, Pont 
Ste. Maxence, and Blincourt to Estrees-St. Denis, 
where we spent the night. Along this road had 
recently passed a great German army, and their 
engineers had constructed new roads to the right 
and left of the original one, so that their regiments 
had been able to march steadily three abreast, 
probably no small factor in their successful retreat. 

This morning we got under way at half-past six. 
The day was hazy, threatening rain; mists rising 
from the ground made it impossible to see clearly 
for any great distance. The heavy atmosphere 
muffled the sound of guns so that it was difficult 
to judge their location even when we were fairly 
close upon them. The day was, however, a most 
advantageous one on which to move about near 
the front, provided one were careful to ascertain 
where, off in the mist, the enemy's batteries lay. 

We first reached the front at Roye-sur-Matz, 
which we found was occupied by a French colonial 
brigade. This place is about three miles from 
Lassigny, which is far within the German lines, 
and from which they have recently organized 
heavy attacks against the French forces. In 

158 



THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 

Roye-sur-Matz the German shells were bursting, 
punctuated by the muffled slump of falling walls. 
The place had been deserted by its inhabitants, 
but Turcos and black Senegalese wandered about 
the ruined streets indifferent to the shell fire. 
For a week past there has been heavy fighting in 
the vicinity of Roye and Lassigny, probably the 
heaviest that has taken place in the Battle of the 
Aisne since the latter part of September. We 
drove slowly down the main street of the village 
looking for an officer who could tell us about the 
local geography. We finally met the acting 
brigadier, a French colonel, who informed us that 
it was not safe for us to continue more than a 
block farther in the direction in which we were 
going, as the far end of the village was "between 
the lines" and we would there come under the 
observation of the German sharpshooters. This 
officer said that the best way to follow the battle- 
line would be to turn back through the village 
and take the first road to the right. 

We stayed in the village for half an hour longer, 
and then, faithfully following directions, went 
back and took the "first turn to the right, " which 
proved to be a narrow road whose existence the 

159 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

officer had forgotten and which was not at all the 
one he meant to recommend. We, ignorant of 
any mistake, went blindly on, down a little hill, 
across a small brook, and up a knoll opposite. In 
doing so we had actually passed out through the 
French lines and reached an elevation squarely 
between the two armies. The French positions 
were, as usual, concealed, and for the moment 
they were not firing, so that we remained blissfully 
unconscious of our dangerous position. For- 
tunately for us, the German lines were at this 
point half a mile away from the French, and owing 
to the mist and distance we were apparently 
unobserved, since we received no especial atten- 
tion. As we reached the top of the knoll it began 
to rain, making us still less conspicuous and 
forcing us to stop and put up the top. We pulled 
up behind an isolated barn in order to be somewhat 
sheltered from stray shrapnel. 

As we stood behind the barn, the bombarded 
village which we had just left lay below and 
behind us, and in front featureless fields sloped 
away toward some low wooded hills half a mile 
distant. Suddenly the constant rumbling of guns 
was interrupted by four quick, sharp explosions, 

160 



THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 

and we perceived little wisps of smoke bluer than 

the mist trailing up through the tree tops of these 

hills. These explosions were French shells bursting 

over the German trenches, but we, naturally 

supposing ourselves to be within the French lines, 

at the moment thought it was a French battery 

firing a salvo. 

While we were putting up the top, two French 

soldiers on picket duty came by and, lured by 

the unfailing bait of cigarettes, stopped to talk 

to us. Taking it for granted that we knew where 

we were, they did not mention our being between 

the lines, but told us of a great fight which had 

last Sunday taken place about two miles to the 

right of where we stood. They said that the 

German and French trenches there faced one 

another across a low field and were so near together 

that at night the French could hear the Germans 

singing. Some peculiarity in the contour of the 

land had led the enemy to think that here was a 

promising point to break through the French 

lines; consequently a series of violent attacks 

had been launched from Lassigny against this 

position. These attacks had repeatedly been 

repulsed with heavy losses and thousands of dead 

161 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Germans lay in the field between the two sets of 
trenches. 

I decided to ask permission to go over this 
recently contested area, and therefore turned 
back to Brigade headquarters in the village of 
Roye-sur-Matz, which we had just left. There, 
in a second talk with the officer who had previously 
directed us, I learned for the first time that we 
had taken the wrong road and been for a consider- 
able time between the French and German armies, 
and only a few hundred yards from the German 
trenches. That we had there seen no signs of 
armies, guns, or entrenchments, indicates the 
curious characteristics of modern warfare, and 
the invisibility of all combatants even when 
actively engaged. The permission which I had 
desired to obtain to inspect the ground of the 
recent battle was refused as being too dangerous- 

We later passed through the village of Guer- 

bigny. Here, as at all times during our trip, the 

guns could be heard booming in the distance. At 

the farther end of the place a family of peasants, 

led by the grandfather, were packing their humble 

worldly goods into a big cart to which was hitched 

162 



THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 

an exceedingly old white horse. They were very 
sad and explained simply, "C'est dur departir." 
They pointed across a field to a little church tower 
about a mile away, only dimly visible through the 
haze, which still hung low over the landscape, say- 
ing pathetically : " On bombarde ce hameau ; c'est la 
les avant-postes des Francais. ' ' Our maps showed 
that the church tower was in the village of Erches. 
A straight road ran down to it from where we stood. 
The mist seemed to favor the possibility of our 
reaching this village without being too quickly 
observed by the Germans. We therefore promptly 
put on all speed and in a few seconds drew up 
under the lee of a battered house, which was on the 
advance line of the French army, and were in 
the midst of the battle. A French officer, who 
appeared out of the house, informed us that we 
were then actually within two hundred yards of 
the German trenches, so near, he said, that his 
men "knew the Germans in the opposing trenches 
by their first names. " 

Seeing a modern battle demolishes all one's 
preconceived ideas derived from descriptions of 
previous wars. One at least expects some sort of 

rapid and exciting action. In reality, as we stood 

163 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

in the very midst of the Battle of the Aisne, there 

was, in our immediate neighborhood, only a dead 

silence. At intervals an angry rumbling would 

break out somewhere in the distance, but in the 

trenches close to our elbows there was no sound or 

movement. No birds, no beasts, no men were 

anywhere to be seen. This uncanny silence would 

continue for twenty or thirty interminable seconds 

and then a shrapnel would burst close by, with a 

sharp, ugly, threatening bang which had no echo; 

then all lapsed into silence again. Each shrapnel 

only made the subsequent silence more intense, 

just as a man's footsteps crunching through the 

snow-crust of a winter wilderness seem like a 

brutal intrusion on the absolute stillness. 

We looked behind us and could see no signs of 

French troops; we peeped around the house 

corner and could perceive no indications of the 

enemy. It was a monotonous landscape which 

faded away through the mist to nothingness, and 

its only noticeable features were a few shell 

craters and two French soldiers sitting close by 

in the end of a trench. These men remained 

motionless so long before one of them moved that 

we began to think they were dead. Their com- 

164 



THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 

rades were all hidden in a bomb-proof trench 
which from any angle was invisible at a distance 
of a few yards. Several more officers came out 
of the house and chatted with us, or unconcernedly 
read newspapers which we distributed and made 
not the slightest break in their conversation when 
a shrapnel burst directly over our heads with ear- 
splitting nearness. 

The shrapnel arrived without any forewarning 
scream. This is a sign that the guns are less than 
two thousand yards away. For the first one or 
two thousand yards of its flight a 3-inch shell 
travels faster than sound, but after that distance 
it so rapidly loses velocity that the sound of its 
screech travels faster than the shell and arrives 
ahead of it. 

We visited the field headquarters of a General, 
commanding a division of twenty thousand men, 
whom we had the pleasure of meeting. Under a 
great haystack which stood alone in the center of 
an open field had been excavated several rooms 
used as the General's Headquarters. Some yards 
away from the haystack a stove-pipe projected 
out of the sod in a foolish unrelated manner; under 

165 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

it was the kitchen in which was cooking the even- 
ing meal for the staff officers. A clump of trees 
close by might be called the General's ante-room, 
for here hidden among the branches were several 
officers receiving and sending messengers and 
dispatches. Several telephone wires ran to the 
haystack and one of them connected the trees 
with the General's underground office. In a 
neighboring wood a troop of cavalry were encamped 
and numerous automobiles and motorcycles were 
parked, all hidden from distant outlooks or from 
aeroplanes overhead. 

The area immediately in the rear of the battle- 
lines is most interesting, for it is here that one 
really learns how a battle is fought. One sees the 
reserves of men and munitions all hidden carefully 
from the view of aeroplanes. Occasionally one 
catches a glimpse of the guns, which are usually a 
mile or so behind the infantry and are hidden and 
protected in the woods and valleys. The artillery 
seldom sees its enemy or even its own front battle- 
line, but fires across woods, hills, and valleys and 
over the heads of its own infantry at the enemy 

beyond. The guns are aimed from mathematical 

1 66 



THE BATTLE OF_THE AISNE 

calculations and the results are checked and 
corrected by observations telephoned back from 
the front. 

* •••••• 

We arrived in Amiens in the middle of the after- 
noon and I went immediately to see the American 
Consular Agent, M. Tassancourt, for whom I had 
messages. I found him in splendid shape and 
very glad to welcome me. I discovered later in 
the day that he had done exceedingly effective 
work during the German occupation of the city, 
and was at least partly responsible for the fact 
that there had been no friction between the Ger- 
man invaders and the population. When our 
official business was finished he took me for an 
inspection of the military hospitals, which occupied 
several hours. The city is only fifteen miles dis- 
tant from the present battle-line and contains 
base hospitals for some forty miles of battle front. 

I took special pains to learn the details of the 
German occupation and to search for any damage 
they might have done. There had been no fighting 
within the city and it had not been shelled by 
either side. The German armies had entered it 
unopposed and had retired from it unpursued, 

167 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

both as the result of decisive actions fought at 
distant points. 

On entering the city the Germans had posted 
notices warning the inhabitants to refrain from hos- 
tile actions and threatening them with dire conse- 
quences if they did not obey orders. A considerable 
number of the leading citizens were taken as host- 
ages for the good behavior of the populace and an 
exorbitant indemnity was demanded of the city. As 
a result of bargaining and protest this was finally cut 
down until the conquerors contented themselves 
with something like one hundred and fifty thousand 
francs in gold, and supplies to the value of about 
eight hundred thousand. All this levy was turned 
over within four days, after which the hostages 
were released, the populace having behaved in a 
manner satisfactory to the invaders. 

The headquarters of the British Red Cross 
Field Ambulance train of the Section Beauvais- 
Lille were temporarily in Amiens. The Consul 
presented me to Mr. Fabian Ware, the Com- 
missioner in command, who very kindly invited 
me to dine with him and his staff. 



1 68 



THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 

At the Front, Wednesday, October 14th. We 
spent last night in Amiens and after a day near 
the front returned again to Amiens in the after- 
noon. On the way from Pas to Amiens the 
machine was running rapidly down the slope of a 
hill toward a little village in the valley, when an 
old white-haired woman detached herself from a 
knot of peasants beside the road and suddenly 
threw herself in front of the wheels. By putting 
on the brakes the driver managed to stop just in 
time to prevent her being crushed. She then tried 
to crawl under the car and was dragged screaming 
away by the villagers. It seems that some twenty 
years ago this woman had been left a widow with 
one child, a boy. With endless labor she had 
brought him to manhood and given him more 
than an average education. When the war broke 
out her son was immediately called to the colors, 
while she remained caring for her tiny house, her 
chickens, and her cow. When the Germans came a 
battle took place in her village, her house was 
knocked down, her cow blown up by a shell, and 
finally her chickens disappeared down German 
throats. The poor old woman, refusing to leave 
the locality in which her life had been passed, had 

169 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

wandered about for days in the rain and mud, until 
cold, hunger, and sorrow had made her light- 
witted. Then while roaming aimlessly over the 
fields she had come upon the body of her dead 
son. 

On this trip I have travelled along the front 
from Lassigny to a point near Arras, or about fifty- 
five miles of battle-line. 

....... 

We left Amiens at six o'clock in the evening and 
passed through Abbeville on the coast, this being 
the point before mentioned from which the Ger- 
mans were at the time only thirty-eight miles 
distant and which they might have reached in two 
days had they advanced as rapidly as they did at 
times during August, or as rapidly as they now 
seem to be doing farther north in Belgium. I 
continued up the coast some forty miles through 
Etaples to Paris-Plage, which I reached at ten 
o'clock. I went immediately to the residence of 
the Countess X. and found to my great satisfac- 
tion that the French chauffeur whom I had sent 
on ahead to prepare the family for the trip to 

Paris had arrived safely with the limousine the 

170 



THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 

day previous and that the children and nurses were 
all ready to leave at daybreak tomorrow. 

Before going to bed I called on the Mayor and 
after a long conference arranged for proper passes 
to get my charges out of the town the next 
morning. 

Thursday, October 15th. We all got started this 
morning at half-past six. I had told the chauf- 
feur to warn the nurses to provide milk, food, 
and everything the children would need for the 
long day's run, as I planned to make Paris in 
one day and did not wish to stop except for emer- 
gencies. I put the five youngest "kids" and the 
two nurses inside the limousine and took the 
English governess and the two older children in the 
back seat of my own car. 

Despite my papers from the Mayor of Paris- 
Plage, my personal passes, and a large sign across 
the front of the automobile reading, ' ' In the Ser- 
vice of the Ambassador of the United States," I 
had an exciting time getting past the gendarmes 
of the town and the Prefecture of Montreuil. 
The difficulty lay in the nationality of the children 
and of one of the nurses, all of whom were Hun- 

171 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

garians and therefore officially enemies of France. 
As such they were not supposed to travel about, 
especially not behind the French battle-line. The 
details of my struggles are too numerous to relate, 
but finally we got through successfully and at good 
speed ran towards Paris. The day throughout 
proved a strenuous one with many detentions 
caused by suspicious sentries and over cautious 
prefects, together with four blow-outs and one 
breakdown. Each self-important petty official 
could see no reason why I should not spend 
several hours explaining things for his special 
benefit. It was manifestly impossible to keep 
the babies out over-night, and therefore I over- 
rode objections, answered innumerable questions, 
and freely used the magic name of the American 
Ambassador. 

The frequent tire trouble, which gave the rest 
of us much anxiety, filled the heart of little Count 
Paul, aged seven, with unalloyed delight, for when 
the machine stopped to shift tires, he could get out 
in the road and listen to the thrilling sound of guns 
booming off to the left. 

In the end, what had to be done was done. 
We made Paris and "Mother" at eight o'clock 

172 



THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 

after a fourteen-hour run — all dead tired, but no 
one the worse for the trip. 

I obtained a very telling idea of the immensity of 
the Battle of the Aisne on this rapid run, for today 
the atmosphere had cleared and was in a sound- 
transmitting mood, so that all day long we could 
hear the cannon on our left booming, booming, 
without cessation — eighty miles of cannon, or 
fourteen hours of booming, a big measure. Our 
route lay through Etaples, Montreuil, Abbeville, 
Pont Remy, Aviames, Poix, where we stopped for 
luncheon, Grandvilliers, Pontoise, and through the 
Porte Maillot into Paris. 



S73 



CHAPTER VII 

THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

Paris, Thursday, October 15th. For the present 
the jottings in my diary grow farther and farther 
apart, as events worth recording have during the 
past weeks occurred with less and less frequency. 
The volume of Embassy work in the department 
of Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians has of late 
been steadily decreasing. Since the end of Sep- 
tember our work has chiefly consisted of routine 
diplomatic correspondence relating to prisoners 
of war. Mr. Herrick's efforts have recently been 
successful in obtaining from the French govern- 
ment an order permitting interned civilians to 
return by way of Switzerland to their homes in 
Germany and Austria-Hungary. This achieves 
the last vital aim for which he has struggled and 
now that everything has been reduced to calm and 
routine it is probable that he will soon return to 
America. The volunteer Attaches, whose duty 

174 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

does not keep them permanently in the diplomatic 
service, begin to feel that since there is no longer 
pressing need of their assistance they must soon 
return to their several professions and to the 
peaceful occupations of civil life. They have 
worked under the inspiring leadership of a man 
with whom familiarity breeds respect, and have 
had the honor of knowing him as one knows those 
only with whom one has passed through dark days. 
Mr. Herrick has proved himself one of those rare 
men who are possessed of high ideals and far vision 
and who at the same time refuse to be impractical. 

Lieutenant Donait and I are hoping that we 
may sometime in the near future have an oppor- 
tunity to make a trip to Berlin with dispatches. 
We should greatly like to see the other side of the 
war. Lieutenant Donait is one of the military 
Attaches at the Embassy with whom I have be- 
come particularly friendly. 

Tuesday, October 27th,. I have finished my work 
with the Germans and Austro-Hungarians and 
turned over all my affairs in good order. Of the 
money sent by the German and Austro-Hungarian 

175 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Governments for their indigent interned subjects, 
the Embassy has distributed more than a quarter 
of a million francs, all of which has passed through 
my hands. It is a relief to get the accounts bal- 
anced and into the charge of the professional book- 
keeper whom the secretaries have at last succeeded 
in engaging. 

Lieutenant Donait awaits orders from Wash- 
ington releasing him from his work at the Embassy. 
It has been arranged that as soon as these arrive 
he and I are to go together to Germany as bearers 
of official dispatches. 

For the interim I have offered my services to 
the Motor Ambulance Corps of the American Hos- 
pital. The existence of this hospital and of its 
ambulance trains is due to Mr. Herrick's efforts 
and its creation is one of his greatest diplomatic 
achievements. Its efficiency, size, and rapid 
growth have done more to promote friendly rela- 
tions between France and the United States than 
any other single factor, excepting only the never- 
to-be-forgotten fact that the American Embassy 
remained in Paris when the Germans were ap- 
proaching the city. The Ambulance Corps is 
under the guidance of the Ambassador and it was 

176 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

his energy which pushed it through the political 
and economic difficulties incidental to its inception. 

Both the hospital and its Ambulance Corps are 
under the immediate direction of a committee of 
prominent Americans, the executive head of which 
is Dr. Winchester Dubouchet, who bears the title 
of Surgeon-in-chief. He is a man possessing the 
rare combination of tact and efficiency. He is 
thoroughly conversant with the technique of his 
profession and has in previous wars had large 
experience with field ambulance service. His 
ability and skill have proved as important in the 
organization and running of these institutions as 
were those of Mr. Herrick in their conception. 

Under the wise leadership of Dr. Dubouchet, 
three other men, Mr. Laurence Benet, Dr. Edmond 
Gros, and Mr. A. Wellesley Kipling, have been 
powerful in promoting the phenomenal growth of 
the Ambulance Corps. Their titles are, respec- 
tively, Chairman of the Transportation Committee, 
Chief Ambulance Surgeon, and Captain of Am- 
bulances. These gentlemen have worked together 
unselfishly and indefatigably, and the rapidity 
with which the manifold difficulties incidental to 
the construction and organization of automobile 

177 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

ambulance trains have been overcome is due to 
their untiring efforts. 

The corps is now being greatly enlarged and I, 
as a staff officer, am to assist in its reorganization. 
Some twenty-five automobile ambulances are al- 
ready in service and this number is soon to be 
increased to sixty or more cars. 

There is in general such a lack of adequate service 
for the wounded that to work with the Ambulance 
Corps and thus contribute one's mite of helpfulness 
is almost a duty for any American who can spare 
even a few weeks of time. When one has seen 
thousands of wounded, as I saw them at the Battle 
of the Marne, lying for three and four days in the 
rain without food, drink, or any medical aid, one 
is irresistibly driven to do something to diminish 
such terrible suffering. Many young Americans 
are feeling the same impulse and volunteers for 
ambulance service are numerous. Appeals for 
additional ambulance cars, moreover, have re- 
ceived generous response from America. It is 
estimated that an ambulance costing $1500 will, 
before it wears out, carry two thousand wounded 

178 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

to hospitals and help the surgeons to save four 
hundred lives which otherwise must die from lack 
of prompt attention. 

Sunday, November isL The last four days have 
been spent in accomplishing as many as possible 
of the necessary preliminaries incidental to joining 
the American Ambulance. They include being 
vaccinated, certifying whether one hashad typhoid, 
getting measured and fitted for a uniform, being 
presented to the various officers, going through a lot 
of formalities leading to the possession of a French 
chauffeur's license, filling out parentage and 
enlistment blanks, and getting proper written 
introductions and identifications. All these steps 
have entailed a good deal of rather necessary 
"red tape," for in war time it is essential to prove 
every step in order to avoid "mistakes." 

The equipment of the members of the corps 
consists of a khaki uniform of very heavy woolen 
cloth, a khaki overcoat, a fatigue cap, heavy flannel 
shirts, a khaki necktie, tan puttees, tan shoes, and a 
tan slicker. The members of the Ambulance obtain 
this outfit for the surprisingly small sum of forty- 
seven dollars, each paying for his own equipment. 

179 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

At odd moments I have been put through 
stretcher-drill and given rudimentary first-aid 
instruction. This afternoon and evening I was 
sent as an orderly on an ambulance running to the 
suburban station of Aubervilliers at which trains 
of wounded make a brief stop on their way from 
the front to the home hospitals in the south of 
France. It is from this station that the American 
Hospital receives its patients, invariably cases 
whose condition is so grave that they are thought 
to be incapable of enduring further travel without 
fatal results. 

Upon entering the service of the Ambulance all 
volunteers, no matter what their ultimate position 
is to be, are required to attain a certain efficiency 
and practical knowledge in the actual handling of 
wounded . I am now taking my turn at this service. 
One train of ambulances is always stationed in 
Paris and carries wounded from the Aubervilliers 
station to the various city hospitals. This train 
is manned by the latest recruits, who there undergo 
training, being meanwhile carefully observed by 
the staff officers. The majority of them prove to 
be good material, and in from two to six weeks are 
sent to the front, while those who are not judged 

180 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

to be reliable are replaced by new volunteers. 
Candidates are not required to agree to any defi- 
nite length of enlistment but are at liberty to leave 
whenever they so elect. On the other hand, the 
chiefs of the Ambulance Corps make no promises 
to send any volunteer to the front but reserve 
the right to select only those men who have first 
proved themselves fit for such great responsibility. 
Field ambulances are virtually all alike and 
as a rule hold four stretchers in two tiers. In 
front are seats for the driver and his orderly, and 
behind is a boxlike body eight feet long with 
wooden roof and floor and canvas sides. From 
the back of the ambulance a wounded man on his 
stretcher is slid into place as a bread pan is slid 
into an oven, the feet of the stretcher running 
on wooden rails. In starting out to collect the 
wounded an ambulance carries its full quota of 
stretchers. When a man is picked up from the 
field of battle one of these is taken out and he is 
carefully lifted on it; if he is already lying on a 
stretcher he is not changed but, in order to save 
unnecessary suffering, put into the ambulance 
with the one on which he is already resting, — 
an empty one being left behind in exchange. In 

181 



THE NOTE-BOOK OP AN ATTACHE 

order that this process may always be feasible 
it is necessary that all stretchers should be inter- 
changeable; the Minister of War has, therefore, 
decreed that a standard stretcher called "Bran- 
quard reglementaire," and no other, must be used 
throughout the French armies. 

As the number of casualties has been overwhelm- 
ingly and unexpectedly large, the French have not 
up to date been able to give proper care to their 
wounded. It is not uncommon for wounded men 
en route from the front to be on trains for three 
and four days, virtually uncared for, and usually 
without anything to eat. Such trains finally 
arrive in Paris freighted with death and madness, 
with gangrene and lockjaw. I today saw two men 
who had been wounded a month ago and were 
still in the clothes in which they had fought. 

The American Corps keeps ambulances at the 
Aubervilliers station day and night in relays, so 
that at any moment not less than two cars are 
there to receive wounded. Today I was assigned 
as orderly to an ambulance on the afternoon shift 
which begins at one o'clock and ends at nine. 
The receiving station for wounded is a huge 
express shed about three hundred feet long and 

182 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

sixty feet wide. A railway siding enters through 
a big door and within runs longitudinally along 
one wall. A large storage platform occupies the 
rest of the interior, on which are arranged four 
parallel benches running nearly the whole length 
of the shed. Each bench is about seven feet wide 
and has a slight slope for "drainage." When we 
arrived all the benches were crowded with wounded, 
who were packed side by side in four long ghastly 
rows. They were wrapped up in their clothes — 
the same old clothes in which they had fought. 
The French are, apparently, not sure that the 
Germans may not yet take Paris, for as a rule they 
do not permit wounded to be sent to that city. 
Only those who are slightly wounded in the hand 
or arm and able to walk, or, on the other hand, 
those too desperately wounded to survive being 
moved farther, are allowed to remain in Paris. 
All the others, although they have already taken 
two or three days to arrive from the front, are 
allowed only twelve hours " repose" before they 
are sent on to the south of France. This ' ' repose ' ' 
is taken on the benches described above or in 
similar situations. If the shed is already full and 
additional trains of wounded arrive, the late 

183 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

comers are left in their cars. Why anyone should 
consider a train which is standing still more 
reposeful than one which is moving I cannot 
imagine. In Paris the wounded at least get 
something to eat, usually coarse bread with meat 
and cheese. They arrive in those silly little 
freight cars marked "eight horses," each of which 
carries about eighteen wounded, twelve on stretch- 
ers in two tiers in each end and some six more 
standing or sitting in the aisle, which extends 
from door to door between the stretchers. 

On arriving at the Aubervilliers station we were 
on duty all the afternoon, and as no trains hap- 
pened to arrive this meant standing in the rain 
and doing nothing at all. After dark, however, 
three train loads of wounded, each of some fifty 
cars, came in at intervals of about an hour. The 
wounded are so many that one counts them by 
trains and the trains come so often that one loses 
count even of them. No one who has not seen 
them can possibly comprehend the human misery 
contained in one such unit. The first train ar- 
rived at five o'clock and brought five hundred 
cases. They had been two days on the way and had 
had nothing at all to eat for the last nineteen hours. 

184 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

Seventy-five of their number were un wounded, 
but had reached such a state of nervous collapse 
that they could not endure life in the trenches a 
minute longer, and had therefore, perforce, been 
sent to the rear. I could not ascertain just how 
such cases were handled at the front for the French 
were reluctant to discuss the matter. Certain it is 
that the instances must have been numerous, for 
the punishment usually prescribed in war for such 
delinquency in the face of the enemy is death 
before a firing squad. The cases must have been 
so numerous and the ordeal withstood at the front 
so terrible that punishment became impracticable. 
In extenuation it may be pointed out that the 
French army, like any conscript army, contains 
every able-bodied man of the nation, a certain 
proportion of whom are inevitably mentally below 
par and have been sent to war against their will 
or inclination. The British are the only ones who 
have fought night and day from the beginning 
without relays and seem to thrive on it, a fact 
chiefly due to their being picked volunteers all of 
whom are soldiers by choice. 

After the first train arrived a number of very 
desperate cases were immediately sorted out and 

185 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

given to our ambulances. The ambulance upon 
which I served was the last to leave. We de- 
parted at seven o'clock, carrying a lieutenant of 
Chasseurs Alpins who had had his hand shot off 
and who showed symptoms of lockjaw, and a little 
private of infantry, a boy with a delicate refined 
face, who had a bad gangrenous shell wound in the 
right thigh. His leg was rotting away in a most 
frightful manner. He was delirious and as weak 
as a kitten. He imagined he was a little child 
again and that his mother was causing him all the 
pain he suffered. He moaned to her reproachfully. 
We picked our way as slowly and carefully as 
possible, never making more than four miles an 
hour and actually avoiding every projecting stone 
and cobble. In spite of our efforts, our charges 
suffered frightfully and the delirious boy made this 
evident in a way which cast a silent spell upon the 
streets through which we passed. We went up 
over Montmartre and along the Boulevard Clichy, 
famous " wicked" street of Paris, because the road 
surfaces happened to be somewhat smoother. As 
we went we left behind us a trail of the intangible, 
all-permeating, sickly-sweetish odor of gangrene. 

It is very curious to see how virtually all fa- 
186 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

tally wounded men know that they are going to 
die and how they grasp it with a certainty which 
exceeds the certainty of anything else in life. 
They often realize it sooner than the surgeons. 
It is most uncanny. Perhaps it is because their 
nervous system senses that its foundation has 
suddenly crumbled. It is very impressive to see 
the quiet, optimistic calm with which they face 
the end, and the bigness of it. It makes one feel 
confident that there is an after-life, or that it is 
at least right to die for an ideal. 

Monday, November 2d. Francis Colby, who 
drove me when I went to get the children of the 
Countess X., has recently enlisted in the American 
Ambulance. He is at present organizing one of 
the new trains of ambulances of which he will 
probably have charge when it is complete. These 
new trains are to be made up of large cars, each 
carrying six sitting or four lying cases. They will 
be able to travel five hundred kilometers without 
taking on gasoline, oil, or other supplies and are 
to carry repair outfits and food supplies. Every 
man in service with these trains, no matter what 
his position, must have a French chauffeur's 

187 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

license, thus providing not only greater elasticity 
in action but enabling the men to drive in relays. 
The amount of detail connected with the prepara- 
tion of such units is immense. 

Saturday, November Jth. Two ambulances are 
being shipped from England to Boulogne, and 
Colby and myself with two other men are to be 
sent out to get them. The necessary permits from 
the General Staff have been applied for. 

Monday, November gth. We received this morn- 
ing the permits for the trip to Boulogne. Dr. 
Walker and William Iselin are to accompany 
Colby and myself; we expect to leave early to- 
morrow morning. We are to drive an ambulance 
■ — a twenty horse-power (English rating) Daimler — 
and on our way shall follow close to the battle 
line in order to hunt suitable locations for the new 
ambulance trains. We go by way of Montdidier, 
Amiens, and Doullens, all of which contain base 
hospitals. 

Tuesday, November ioih. We left Paris at ten 

this morning by the Porte St. Denis and proceeded 

188 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

through Aubervilliers and Ecuen to Chantiily, 
where we stopped for lunch. The motor had been 
running very badly, and as no one else seemed 
willing to try conclusions with it I undertook the 
task. The trouble proved to be in the carbureter. 
After I had taken this to pieces and put it together 
again everything went smoothly. While I was at 
work, the other members of the party wandered 
about the town and talked with the inhabitants, 
whose village had been occupied by the Germans 
for several days during their dash toward Paris. 
It was well that the most valuable articles in the 
museum of the chateau had been hidden away 
before the Germans arrived, as they carried off 
pretty much everything that was in sight. 

The first Germans who had entered the town 
had not worn the characteristic spiked helmet and 
many of the inhabitants had mistaken them for 
English troops. Early in the war this error was 
frequently made by French peasants, to whom the 
British and Germans were equally unknown. The 
townspeople were still laughing at one old inn- 
keeper who had freely given of his choicest supplies 
to the supposed Englishmen, and had spent the 
better part of an afternoon enthusiastically and 

189 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

vigorously grooming their horses, meanwhile keep- 
ing up a stream of frightfully abusive remarks "a 
propos de ces cochons des Boches" much to the 
amusement of his Teutonic audience. 

We arrived in Amiens after dark and there 
encountered an old friend in Mr. Richard Norton, 
the American archeologist, who is at present com- 
manding a British Red Cross unit in the field. We 
had dinner with him and obtained from him much 
valuable information. 

Mr. Norton's train has its base at Doullens. 
He is tonight in Amiens on official business and 
has with him only his scout car and its driver. 
His train has received orders to report early 
tomorrow morning at a field hospital near the 
village of Bouzincourt which is only a little more 
than two miles from the " German " town of Albert. 
His train is to assist in the evacuation of some two 
hundred gravely wounded French soldiers who are 
threatened by heavy German infantry attacks 
and are even now under shell fire. At dawn he is 
to go direct to Bouzincourt in his scout car and 
there meet his ambulances. We have decided 

190 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

to accompany him to aid, if possible, in removing 
the wounded. 



Wednesday, November nth. After an early- 
breakfast, we followed Mr. Norton's scout car 
through a deluge of rain as it proceeded at a dizzy 
pace toward the sound of battle. We passed 
through the villages of Querrieux, Lavieville, and 
Millencourt, getting into a "hot" neighborhood 
near the latter place. 

On arriving at Bouzincourt we found that the 
German attacks had been decisively repulsed at 
sunrise this morning and the French surgeons in 
charge of the field hospital had reconsidered their 
decision to move the wounded, nearly all of whom 
were in a precarious condition. The ambulance 
train therefore returned empty to its base at 
Doullens, travelling by protected roads, while Mr . 
Norton's car, with our own, followed along the 
battle-line, his purpose being to scout for possible 
wounded in order better to direct the afternoon 
operations of his train. 



191 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Not far from Colincamps we stood upon the 
crest of a hill beside a group of nine French field 
guns. They were cleverly concealed in an arti- 
ficial fence line carefully constructed in all its 
details along the hilltop. Fence posts had been 
erected and the artillerymen had also set up the 
trees, vines, and underbrush which normally follow 
and accentuate the boundaries between fields. 
The day was so windy and rainy that we had no 
fear of being observed by German aeroplanes, and 
therefore stood tranquilly behind the guns and 
talked with the commanding officer. 

A mile below us in the valley we could through 

our field-glasses define the position of the French 

trenches and beyond them locate the German 

trenches. Between the two stretched that No 

Man's Land, called "between the lines," which 

runs from Ostend through Bethune, Albert, and 

Lassigny to Soissons and Rheims and from thence 

to the Swiss frontier. Following its twistings and 

turnings this strip of land is four hundred and 

fifty miles in length. It lies wrapt in uncanny 

solitude for in all its length there moves no living 

creature. It changes from beet-fields to plowed 

land, to pastures and back to the eternal beet- 

192 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

fields again. It runs across farms and over hills, 
through cities and under forest trees. It varies 
in width, here narrowing to a few feet, there 
widening to several hundred yards. Five minutes 
would be ample time to walk across it anywhere, 
and yet it is the most impassable frontier ever 
marked out by man anywhere on the surface of 
mother earth. No person may cross it, no matter 
how exalted his position nor how mighty his influ- 
ence, for throughout its length hosts of trained men 
lie ever ready to let loose upon any intruder a 
thousand shells and a million bullets. 

What sights one might behold if one could, 
himself invisible, follow this ribbon of scarred 
earth as it winds its way across Europe from the 
North Sea to the Alps ! Its length is mazed with 
barbed wire and electric death, and menaced by 
pits and mines. Heaps of dead men lie in the sun 
or rain, and the wounded cry faintly and more 
faintly until they too are dead. The plants and 
trees are blasted and even the earth has been torn 
arid tortured by explosions. 

At some point along this line a moment comes 
when thousands of men start suddenly out of the 
bare earth like Sons of the Dragon's Teeth and as 
13 193 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

promptly charge forward. For a brief moment 
their shouts are heard through the stillness and 
then their voices are drowned by one great hellish 
din, made up of the roar of guns, the crash of 
cannon, the scream of shells, and the shock of ear- 
splitting explosions. The ground under their feet 
heaves and shakes and the air about them is filled 
with a confusion of flying dust and debris. 

As we stood on the hill-crest and talked to the 
French officer a furious cannonade was going on 
around us. In our rear, hidden behind hills, three 
different French batteries were in intermittent 
action, and somewhere off beyond the valley in 
front lay the hidden German batteries which were 
returning their fire. Shells from both sides passed 
back and forth over our heads and the German 
shells banged and burst a thousand yards behind 
our backs. 

The guns beside us were silent. They had, 

undetected, held their present position for a whole 

day. They watched the two lines in the valley as 

intently as these lines watched each other, for in 

front of us was one of those crucial points against 

which attacks are frequently launched by the 

194 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

enemy. The batteries beside which we stood 
waited hour after hour for that sudden critical 
moment when the Germans should attempt to 
launch any attack between the lines. These 
nine guns could together fire two hundred rounds 
a minute, which means seventy thousand shrapnel 
bullets. These batteries were connected by tele- 
phone with the trenches a mile in front, and also 
with various observation points from which the 
results of their fire could be accurately judged and 
cross-checked. 

A few hundred yards to our right in plain view 
across the open fields was the little village of 
Auchonvillers. Suddenly a great German shell 
burst with an earth-shaking shock in the open 
fields about three hundred yards behind it, throw- 
ing up a great cloud of inky black smoke nearly as 
large as a city block. It made a crater more than 
a hundred feet in circumference. The French 
officers said that it was either a twelve-inch or an 
"eleven-point-two" and prophesied that a second 
and more accurate shot would soon follow and 
strike the village itself. We watched intently and 
some minutes later a great shell did fall squarely 
into the little hamlet. Again a great cloud of jet 

195 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

black smoke shot up into the air, but this time it 
was mixed with bits of houses and fragments of 
earth. The smoke drifted off slowly, and reluc- 
tantly floated away on the wind until some minutes 
later we were able to discern the town as it emerged 
from the cloud of dust, showing a great gap in its 
sky-line. 

We had lunch in Doullens with the officers of 
Mr. Norton's train. 

At one point in the front line we heard this 
story relative to barbed- wire entanglements. A 
week ago a lieutenant and several of his men 
ventured forth at night and succeeded in crawling 
unobserved under the entanglements. Reaching 
the German trenches they leapt in among their 
enemies and did much execution ; but becoming too 
enthusiastic, they overstayed their leave, so that 
none of them ever returned. The Germans, not 
wishing to be again surprised in such a disagree- 
able manner, on the next dark night slipped out 
of their trenches and hung a great quantity of 
cowbells upon the lower strands of their wire en- 
tanglements. Before many nights had passed 

196 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

another party of daring Frenchmen again essayed 
to crawl to the German trenches but, ringing 
up the cowbells, were all killed in the resulting 
fusillade. 

Not content to leave the matter as it stood, an 
intrepid Frenchman crept out on the following 
night, unwinding a ball of twine as he advanced. 
He succeeded in attaching the end of this to a cow- 
bell without making any noise to betray his pres- 
ence. He then made his way safely back to his 
own trenches and from their shelter vigorously 
pulled the string. A most ungodly clank and 
clatter resulted, wrecking the stillness of the 
night. This aroused the Teutons and led them 
into a solid hour of furious but futile shooting. 
The string was similarly pulled on several succeed- 
ing occasions and always produced the desired 
result of uproar and shooting, until it was finally 
severed by a bullet. 

Our party arrived in Hesdin at half-past six 
this evening. It was raining furiously and the 
condition of the roads and the obscurity of the 
night made it extremely hazardous to proceed 
farther. The village was packed with British 

197 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

transports and we could find only one vacant bed 
in the whole place. Two of us slept in that and the 
other two on stretchers in the ambulance. 

Thursday, November 12th. At eleven o'clock 
this morning we reached Boulogne, which is at 
present a British army base and almost deserves 
to be called an English city. It is filled with troops, 
with Red Cross and Royal Army Medical Corps, 
and with transport wagons, all British. English 
is heard on all sides and the London Times is by 
noon on sale in the streets. Bits of the front 
freshly arrived are much in evidence; one sees 
everywhere English Tommies on leave, wounded 
Ghurkas, and convoys of sullen German prisoners. 

At present British wounded are being shipped 
to England at the rate of more than two thousand 
a day, which is probably one reason why their 
forces on the Continent have not, in spite of their 
strenuous recruiting and of the use of Colonial 
and Indian troops, exceeded two hundred thou- 
sand men. 

The basins of the harbor at Boulogne are 
crammed with a heterogeneous mass of shipping — 

198 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

transports, warships, submarines, torpedo boats,. 
Red Cross steamers, and great rafts of small sailing 
vessels which were tied up because of the war. 
The docks and wharves are piled mountain-high 
with great masses of supplies, and parks of ambu- 
lances and war automobiles await call to service. 

Ambulances run hither and thither carrying 
wounded to the half dozen Red Cross boats which 
are tied up to the wharves. Each of these ships 
is painted white with a great red cross displayed 
upon either side. 

Friday \ November Jjth. We did not succeed in 
finding the two ambulances for which we had come. 
Iselin left for London yesterday afternoon to try 
to trace them in England. 

Saturday, November 14th. On our return trip 
to Paris we left Boulogne at half-past two yester- 
day afternoon and made a " forced march" of 
sixteen hours straight through to Paris, where 
we arrived this morning at six. It rained in tor- 
rents all day yesterday, all night long, and is still 
pouring today. We three worked in relays, one 

sleeping in the ambulance while another drove and 

199 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

the third read maps and showed passports to 
sentries. Dr. Walker and I slept while Colby 
drove alone over well-known roads as far as 
Abbeville, where we arrived at half-past seven. 
We left at eight after a hasty supper, and I drove 
the car straight through to Paris while Dr. Walker 
managed the maps. 

I reported to the Ambulance Headquarters this 
morning and found that I had been assigned to 
duty in assisting Captain Kipling with the execu- 
tive details of the organization of the new am- 
bulance trains. In future every train is to be 
composed of five ambulances, one repair car, and 
one scout car, and is to be manned by an officer 
and thirteen men. Each such unit is to be com- 
plete in itself and is called a "squad. " As such it 
will be assigned to duty with the Paris Hospital, 
with field hospitals, or with the French, British, 
or Belgian armies. The field work is to be con- 
trolled from Paris by Captain Kipling and a board 
of three staff officers. O. W. Budd is to be Chief 
of Staff, E. W. McKey, Adjutant, and during the 
remainder of my short time of service with the 
Corps I am to have charge of equipment and 
material. 

200 



THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

The Corps has recently been recognized by the 
French army, and from now on will virtually be 
a part of that army. It will receive orders direct 
from the Minister of War and from the General 
Staffs. 

Friday, November 27th. Mr. Herrick leaves for 
America tomorrow. Today he was busy at his 
desk in the Embassy until late in the afternoon, 
during which time he dictated a personal letter to 
me thanking me for my services under his admin- 
istration, a document that will ever be one of my 
most prized possessions. 

Donait's leave of absence has arrived from 
Washington and I am leaving with him tomorrow 
via Switzerland with special dispatches for Berlin. 

I received an indefinite "leave of absence " 
from the American Ambulance, nominally retain- 
ing my position as staff officer in hopes of rendering 
indirect service to the Corps after my return to 
America. 

Saturday, November 28th. It is impossible for 

the French people to understand why the United 

201 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

States should remove Mr. Herrick from his post 
just when he has so valiantly proved himself 
equal to the great demands which have been made 
upon him in the present crisis. In the diplomacy 
of other countries a plenipotentiary is never re- 
placed in times of great stress, except as a rebuke 
to him or as an intimation that the policies he has 
expressed are to be reversed by his government. 
That a valuable diplomat should at a critical time 
be replaced for reasons of mere party politics 
seems incomprehensible to European nations. 

Note. — The French Government sent a representative to 
America on the same boat with Mr. Herrick. As the ship 
was approaching land and Mr. Herrick was again virtually a 
private citizen within the bounds of his native country, this 
representative of the French Republic conferred upon him the 
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, the highest order in the gift 
of France and one usually reserved for her rulers and her victori- 
ous marshals. As far as I have been able to ascertain, this is 
the only time that such an honor has ever been conferred upon an 
American. 



202 



CHAPTER VIII 

GERMANY AND BERLIN 

Berne, Saturday, November 28th. Donait and 
I left Paris at nine last evening for Lyons, Culoz, 
and Geneva with dispatches for Berlin. For 
many reasons we are particularly anxious to 
see Germany and Austria in war time, and look 
forward keenly to the experience which we 
face. 

We arrived in Geneva at noon. We were very 
tired, for our train and compartment were over- 
crowded and we had to sit up all night. The 
responsibility of the sack of official papers which 
we carried, and on which one of us had constantly 
to keep his mind, hand, and eyes, was an additional 
element of fatigue. 

We were forced to wait in Geneva until five 
o'clock for a train to Berne, where we finally 
arrived at nine this evening. 

203 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Sunday, November 2Qth. This morning Donait 
and I presented ourselves at the American Lega- 
tion and delivered our dispatches. It is the cus- 
tom to send all mail for the American Embassy 
in Berlin to the Legation in Berne, where it is 
opened, checked over, and re-forwarded. In the 
afternoon we paid our respects to the Military 
Attache, Major Lawton. 

German newspapers are acceSwSible to us this 
morning for the first time since July. It is most 
interesting to view the reverse of the shield. 

Monday, November joth. Berne is almost as 
much in a state of war as Paris. The whole 
Swiss army of 500,000 is mobilized and has been 
on the frontiers since the end of July. The nation 
is on a war footing and seems to be about equally 
suspicious of all the nations concerned in the 
"present unpleasantness." A certain quiet confi- 
dence, however, pervades Switzerland, a confidence 
which even a small nation may feel when it has 
an effective army. Every normal Swiss citizen 
is a trained soldier, for in his twentieth year he 
undergoes from sixty to ninety days of intensive 

military instruction. 

204 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

I speak of the efficiency of the Swiss army. I 
might add that the Germans would undoubtedly 
have preferred to invade France through Switzer- 
land rather than through Belgium. Their flank 
would then not have been exposed to the disastrous 
pressure of the British army and navy. The fact 
of the matter is that they feared the British and the 
Belgians combined less than the Swiss. So great are 
the advantages of reasonable military preparedness. 

Preparedness and military system are not synony- 
mous with a large standing army. A small, well- 
prepared army may be the nucleus around which 
an efficient military system can be built. The 
Swiss organization is at present most interesting, 
for it has saved that country from becoming in- 
volved in the present war. Had Belguim been as 
well prepared as was Switzerland, Germany would 
have observed sacred treaties and invaded France 
across the Franco-German border. 

The efficient Swiss military system, which can 
put 500,000 trained and organized men into the 
field, costs less than ten million dollars a year. 
Our ineffective American standing army of 85,000 
men costs us one hundred millions a year, on a 
peace footing. The difference is due to the fact 

205 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

that the frugal, thrifty Swiss, like most other 
nations, do not consider civilians competent to 
meddle with military matters — or that national 
defense should be subject to the vagaries of party 
politics — or that an army is a fit subject for the 
experiments of amateur social scientists. 

In spite of the cruel calamities which have in 
the past overtaken the United States because of 
her perpetual unpreparedness, we still insist that 
because we do not believe in war we therefore need 
no military system. It is as if we held that since 
we do not wish to be ill we will abolish physicians 
— or as if we believed that because we do not de- 
sire to have our homes burn down we will do away 
with the fire department and with insurance. No 
matter how pacific a nation may be it cannot avoid 
war by signing peace treaties, either singly or by 
the bushel. Reasonable military preparedness is 
the only valid insurance against disastrous and 
ruinous war. 

We did without this war insurance in the decade 

from 1850 to i860, when we at that time needed 

insurance only to the amount of 100,000 trained 

soldiers. This would have cost about seventy-five 

millions. Had we possessed this insurance the 

206 



GERMANY AND BERLIN . 

Civil War would never have been fought. For 
the lack of it our country missed disintegration 
by a hair's breadth, and escaped disaster only be- 
cause we happened to have one of the great men 
of history as President. The ultimate victory was 
won at a cost of which the following items were 
only a part : 

750,000 lives. 

10,000 million dollars in national debt and pensions. 

25,000 million dollars in property damage. 

All this would have been prevented by a pro- 
tective expenditure of 75 millions a year. 

No more fatal delusion was ever cherished than 
the belief that "it takes two to make a quarrel." 
In world history it has seldom needed two to make 
a quarrel. Did Belgium quarrel with Germany? 

Our legation in Berne has always been the most 

isolated, humdrum spot on earth. People stationed 

here nearly died of ennui ; nothing ever happened, 

until all Europe suddenly was plunged into the 

conflagration of war, and then Berne became, of 

necessity, the clearing house for the continent 

for dispatches, mail, telegrams, money, prisoners, 

and refugees. Every telegram which the American 

207 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Embassy in Paris sends to the Embassies in 
Germany, Austria, or Italy is directed: "American 
Legation, Berne. Repeat to Gerard " — or Penfield 
or Page, as the case may be. 

German prisoners in France are numbered in 
tens of thousands and for a long time the only 
means of communication from them and to them 
was by means of the two American Embassies 
through the American Legation in Berne. The 
little three-room Berne Legation with its small 
staff was simply overwhelmed with work. 

Donait and I were sent by Minister Stovall to 
make a verbal report on the situation of the Ger- 
mans in France to Baron Romberg, the German 
Minister to Switzerland. I was much impressed 
in this my first touch with a German official. He 
is rather small, slim of body, but keen of mind, 
with excellent repose and control. Like all Ger- 
man diplomats, he speaks faultless English. A 
startling evidence of the efficiency of the German 
Information Bureau was furnished by the fact 
that he already knew to the minutest details 
nearly as much about my work in Paris in caring 
for German subjects as did I myself. 

He spoke quite unreservedly about many 
208 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

matters but did not attempt to draw us into 
indiscretions as do so many foreign diplomats when 
dealing with younger men. 

This evening I walked out along the embank- 
ment in front of the Parliament Houses and 
watched a gorgeous sunset and Alpine glow upon 
the snow mountains of the Bernese Oberland, 

One is not permitted to telephone in English or 
in any language except German or French (the 
native languages of Switzerland), and even then the 
telephone girls listen closely to one's conversation. 

Donait and I have made all our preparations to 
depart for Berlin early tomorrow morning, our 
dispatches having been sorted out, checked, and 
re-pouched. 

Tuesday, December 1st. We reached the Swiss- 
German frontier at noon today. We descended 
from the train at Basle and drove three miles 
to the frontier. Here there were two barriers 
straight across the road, the nearer one guarded by 
numerous Swiss soldiers ; the farther, some twenty 

yards behind, by soldiers wearing the spiked 
14 209 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

helmet. Before we were allowed to pass the first 
barrier our papers and luggage were minutely 
examined by Swiss military and customs officers. 
We then walked across the twenty yards to the 
second, or German, barrier, where we were con- 
ducted into a little guard-house. Here some 
dozen soldiers were sleeping or playing cards on 
cots in the background along the walls. An 
efficient sergeant examined our papers and then 
allowed us to pass the second barrier into Ger- 
many, showing marked respect for the Hen- 
Lieutenant and the Herr Attache. 

We loaded our suit-cases in a second vehicle, 
a German one this time, and proceeded some two 
miles to the railroad station of Leopoldshohe. 
While we stood on the station platform at Leo- 
poldshohe, heavy guns\in battle could be heard off 
toward Mulhausen and once there came the typical 
crash of a big shell exploding much nearer, prob- 
ably not more than three or four kilometers away. 
As near as that to a battle in France one sees a 
disorganized, deserted, wrecked countryside, with 
wagon trains going back and forth and wounded 
soldiers straggling toward the safety zone. Here 
in Germany everything was in the most perfect 

210 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

order, with no excitement or confusion, and 
passenger trains left on the minute by schedule 
time. It was difficult to realize that there was a 
battle within a thousand miles. 

The moment one enters Germany one feels 
efficiency as if one had passed under a spell. The 
way the feeling immediately impresses itself upon 
one is a curious psychological phenomenon. One 
senses at once the wonderful civic consciousness 
of the nation and respects it. One does not throw 
waste paper out of a carriage window, nor take 
trivial short cuts, nor walk on the grass, nor 
attempt to pass through ticket gates before the 
proper time. Everything is regulated, all is done 
in order. 

I was momentarily embarrassed and self- 
conscious when first I found myself rubbing 
shoulders with gentlemen in spiked helmets. 
During the past four months I had seen them only 
as prisoners or dead men, and their only greetings 
had been by way of their shells and bombs. 

After an all-day trip from Leopoldshohe down 
the Rhine Valley I arrived in Mannheim, where 
I am to remain over-night, as I have letters which 
I am instructed to leave with our Consul in this 

211 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 



town. Donait stopped off en route for a day to 
visit the old family homestead from which his 
ancestors emigrated to America. I arrived safely 
in Mannheim about ten o'clock, went to the Park 
Hotel, which I selected from Baedeker, got an 
excellent room, and went immediately to bed. 

Mannheim, Wednesday, December 2d. At half- 
past seven this morning I was awakened from a 
sound sleep by a pounding at my door. I climbed 
sleepily out of bed and, in pajamas, opened the 
door to two extremely polite and suave Secret 
Service men who, nevertheless, examined my 
papers with the greatest thoroughness and as 
carefully cross-questioned me as to my race, color, 
and previous condition. They asked to see my 
dispatches, whose seals they studied in order to 
be certain that I was really carrying some sort 
of official messages. Having listened with close 
attention to my story, they asked me out of a 
clear sky where Donait was and why he had left 
me. They capped the climax by reminding me 
that at Leopoldshohe I had told the sergeant we 
were bound for Berlin, which was exactly what I 
had told him, not having considered the brief stop 

212 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

at Mannheim of sufficient importance to be men- 
tioned. When they had received a satisfactory 
explanation of the discrepancy (the conversation 
having staggered along in German, of which my 
knowledge is limited) they thanked me politely 
and withdrew. I dressed, had breakfast, and pre- 
sented myself at the Consulate just before the 
opening hour at ten. 

I was received by the Vice- Consul, Mr. Coch- 
rane, and had not been in the Consulate five 
minutes when the police office called him up by 
telephone and asked politely if I was "all right. " 
It was my first lesson with the German Secret Ser- 
vice, but the only one I needed to prove that while I 
was in Germany my every move was noted and that 
I was to be constantly under police surveillance. 

After delivering my packages to the Consulate 
I waited until after dinner for Donait, with whom 
I am to leave for Berlin at nine o'clock. I took 
luncheon with Vice-Consul Cochrane, spent the 
afternoon sightseeing in the streets of the city, and 
dined with Consul Leishman and his wife. 

Berlin, Thursday, December 3d. Donait and 
I had a whole compartment to ourselves last night, 

213 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

which shows how normally German railroads are 
running. We arrived in Berlin at eight o'clock 
this morning, bathed, dressed, and had breakfast, 
at eleven o'clock presented ourselves at the Ameri- 
can Embassy and delivered our precious dispatch 
pouch to Mr. Grew, the First Secretary. 

I was surprised and much pleased to find that an 
old playmate, Charles Russell, was Private Secre- 
tary to Ambassador Gerard, a position in which he 
has achieved a great success. 

Our duty discharged, we hastened to take our 
first walk along the famous Unter den Linden. 
The city of Berlin is well laid out, with wide 
avenues and numerous and ample park spaces, 
some of them very large, but the architecture of 
the city is a jumble of heavy, clumsy, gloomy 
buildings, fussed up with most extraordinarily 
crude and grotesque details. For an architect 
to be in Berlin is next door to being in hell. 

Our Military Attache, Major Langhorne, has 
been at the front almost continuously since the 
beginning of operations. In his absence, we called 
upon the Naval Attache. I also called at the 
American Consulate to leave dispatches and found 
that the Vice-Consul had been one of my class- 

214 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

mates at Yale. He remembered me as "Fish 
Wood" the runner, and probably in true Yale 
spirit considered my occupation of Attache much 
less important. 

The present conditions in Berlin are as unknown 
to the outside world as are the domestic affairs 
of China. In order not to make too many diplo- 
matic faux pas, I spent the first day talking with 
the men whom I knew and in accumulating useful 
data as to danger points. As one in Germany 
senses efficiency, one as quickly becomes conscious 
of the all-seeing eye and the all-guiding hand of 
the Government. We have nothing like that in 
America, and for an American in France there is 
no such supervision. Life in Prussia is at present, 
for the diplomat of a neutral country, much like 
skating on thin ice. Several of the younger diplo- 
mats in Berlin have unconsciously committed 
acts considered indiscreet by the German Govern- 
ment, and so ended their usefulness in Germany. 

It is a mistake to suppose that there are dis- 
sensions or differences of opinion in the German 
nation, or that the Kaiser or the military party 
has imposed war on the people. In modern times 

215 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

it would not be possible for even an absolute 
monarch to force an unwilling people into such a 
momentous step. The German Government is 
the product and expression of the German people. 
They have made it and, having created it, they 
are proud of their work. The Emperor is in popu- 
lar estimation not much lower than God Almighty, 
and the two seem inextricably mingled in the 
public mind. The world-wide amusement created 
by "Me und Gott," or by the Emperor's firm 
conviction that he and he alone is worthy of divine 
aid and approval, is an amusement not shared by 
any Germans. If you say to them, "the Emperor 
seems to think the German people are the one 
race chosen of God and that He works only for 
them and their advancement," the Germans will 
promptly and emphatically reply : ' ' why, of course ; 
all our past history proves that." The God they 
appeal to, however, is the God of Battles of the 
Old Testament and of the ancient Hebrews, who 
slew His enemies, destroyed nations, and annihi- 
lated races, who was cruel and vindictive. 

The German nation is, up to this date, but little 

cramped by the war. The people and the army 

216 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

lack for nothing. All the shops, hotels, restaurants, 
theaters, and dance halls in Berlin are open and 
well patronized. Several million men fit for 
military service have not yet been called out, 
because they are not needed. At the front they 
have such a great body of infantry that a certain 
proportion of them are by turns given a vacation 
and allowed to return to their homes. The Ger- 
man officers say that Germany did not count on a 
speedy termination of the war; they even believe 
that it may last four years and face this possibility 
with courage and with confidence of final victory. 
As for the famine conditions, I did not accept 
German opinion about the abundance or price of 
food supplies, but myself asked prices in shops and 
public markets and in various restaurants and 
hotels — all sure thermometers of any rise in the 
price of food. 

If Germany ever pleads famine it will be for 
some purpose of diplomacy. In times of peace she 
raises each year more than she can herself consume 
and is an exporter of food-stuffs. This year she 
had a good crop, and, needless to say, it was, with 
characteristic efficiency, entirely harvested. She 
has retained for her own use the surplus usually 

217 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

exported. Every possible lack that war might 
bring had been anticipated and provided for, or 
a substitute suggested. The country does not 
produce as much wheat as she consumes, but 
German scientists have produced a potato flour 
which, when mixed with wheat, makes excellent 
bread, as I myself can testify. Potatoes are 
plentiful, as Germany usually exports large 
quantities. 

The army appears to lack nothing. Military 
necessities like wool, lead, gasoline, nitrates, am- 
munition, accoutrements, and hospital supplies 
they seem to have in superabundance. 

Berlin, Friday, December 4th. William Iselin 
left Paris with dispatches for London and Berlin 
at the same time that we started via Berne. 

In Berlin, restaurants, cafes, theaters, and con- 
certs are going at full blast. Donait, Iselin, and 
I, who have for months been working like dogs 
in Paris, which is as dull as a country village and 
where cafes close at eight and restaurants at nine 
and no places of amusement are open other than 
a few poor cinemas, are thoroughly enjoying the 

contrast. We three dined together at a splendid 

218 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

establishment where we ate many elaborate courses 
while listening to a good band and watching an 
excellent variety show, which lasted until eleven. 
From then until two we wandered about to various 
dance and supper establishments. 

All the banks in Berlin are open and will pay 
out gold in certain limited quantities to anyone 
who wishes to go to a foreign country. Gold 
brings par and no more. Auto-busses are running 
everywhere and many private automobiles are 
seen on the street which have not been requisi- 
tioned by the government. Trams and subways 
also run at all hours. In short, the life of the city 
seems to be pretty nearly normal. The only signs 
of war disasters are the convalescent wounded 
soldiers who walk about the streets. 

One is impressed by the virility and vigor of the 
Germans as a race. Their national spirit also is 
wonderful, exceeded only perhaps by that of the 
Japanese. People who one day read the announce- 
ment of the death of a son, a father, or a brother, 
are seen the next day in the streets or cafes going 
about quietly, expressing or betraying neither 

219 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

sorrow nor regret. The loved one has died "fur 
Gott, fur Konig, und fur Vaterland. " That is 
glory enough, and neither the Emperor nor the 
people feel that it is appropriate to mourn for 
one who has died for his country. 

Saturday, December 5 th. I went this morning 
with Donait to inspect the prison camp at Zossen, 
which is about forty kilometers from Berlin and 
holds at present twenty thousand French soldiers, 
guarded by fifteen hundred of the Landsturm. 
Their camp was surrounded by three lines of very 
high and effective barbed-wire fences. In each of 
the alleys between these fences German sentinels 
paced back and forth. The prisoners seemed to 
me to be excellently cared for and were healthy, 
well-fed, and fairly contented. They were physi- 
cally better off than they would be in muddy 
trenches at the front. They have all been given 
some kind of work to do, such as caring for their 
own prison camps, cooking, and building sheds 
for themselves or barracks for the German army. 
We saw a procession of about two thousand who 
came in from a near-by forest carrying tremendous 
bundles of faggots for firewood. As they marched 

220 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

they were singing, with a good deal of spontaneous 
gusto, a ribald French song. We considered their 
condition a great credit to their captors. 

We were shown the famous great parade ground 
of Berlin, It is an immense field, quite flat, 
beautifully turfed, and about one and a half miles 
square. In one corner is about one-third of a 
square mile of pine woods with little rolling hills 
and an imitation forest country where troops can 
be drilled in skirmish formation. Young soldiers 
were being trained thereon in advancing in eche- 
lons and in taking up well-hidden firing-line 
positions. 

The regular army of Germany as it has been 
recruited each year has absorbed just over half of 
the eligible men of the nation. Military service 
therefore has by no means been universal, and 
there are several million men of military age who 
have never been utilized. Over two million of the 
latter have volunteered since August, only two 
hundred and thirty thousand of whom have as 
yet been accepted for training. In addition not 
all of the regular army has yet been brought into 
service. 

221 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

The German officers have, since the opening of 
the war, adapted themselves to changed conditions 
with unexpected flexibility. They immediately 
relaxed their ordinary overbearing manner and 
assumed a closer relationship with the private 
soldiers. They do not, as their enemies report, 
drive their men but they themselves lead to bat- 
tle. They are idolized by the nation as a whole 
and by the army in particular. They do not 
address the soldiers of the rank and file in the 
second person singular, but in the more respectful 
second person plural. 

The Kaiser has already awarded thirty-eight 
thousand iron crosses. He takes the ground that 
he is nevertheless maintaining the standard of 
1870. He says that the numbers now involved are 
so much larger and the demands in courage and 
endurance so much greater that thousands deserve 
to be decorated in the present conflict where 
hundreds won the honor in the Franco-Prussian 
war. 

I lunched today with Commander Gherardi, 

the Naval Attache, in order to discuss with him 

what we had each seen of the war on the western 

front. He is making an important study of opera- 

222 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

tions on the eastern battle-lines and has several 
times been to the front. 

Today I was told that although it was impossible 
to go into Belgium to observe operations, it was 
probable that I would soon be sent to Brussels 
with dispatches to the American Minister, Brand 
Whitlock. 

I have recently been introduced to many very 

interesting Germans, both diplomats and officers, 

and have obtained many valuable ideas. The 

reply I receive whenever I ask Germans what 

they want and expect to gain in this war, and what 

terms of peace they, at present, hope to secure, 

is almost invariably the same. They all say: 

"we will never give up Belgium; we mean to keep 

Poland; we would like to have Calais and hope 

eventually to get it, but . . . " They point 

out that they have so far constantly taken the 

offensive role, which must often fail in modern 

war, being by far the more difficult part to play. 

They declare with conviction that when once they 

take the defensive they can never be beaten back. 

They cite the fact that for the last three months 

they have on the Aisne in temporary positions 

maintained an unbroken front, despite the per- 

223 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

sistent efforts of the Allies to drive them back. 
They add that except Calais and Warsaw they 
now hold virtually everything they want, and to 
keep it permanently they need only to stand on 
the defensive. 

A few weeks of victory or defeat will naturally 
modify their present ambitions. From a material 
standpoint it is difficult to refute their argument, 
but moral and sentimental reasons have before 
now turned the tide against the "strongest bat- 
talions," despite Napoleon's verdict. Germany 
herself begins to suspect that her brutal invasion 
of Belgium has turned the moral sentiment of the 
world against her, and that her defeat would 
grieve few people not of German birth. 

Berlin, Sunday, December 6th. About the atro- 
cities in Belgium there is, apparently, no question, 
but considering the way the Germans controlled 
themselves in France, some explanation of their 
brutality farther north in Belgian Flanders is 
necessary. The Germans say that the cruelties 
were not all on one side; that the Belgians prac- 
tised sniping, impeded the German army, and 

mutilated German wounded. The only one of 

224 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

these charges that seems to have been proved is 
that of sniping, but even if other cruelties were 
committed it must be remembered that the moral 
status of the Belgians was entirely different from 
that of the Germans. The Belgians were aroused 
to blind fury by the disregard of their neutrality 
rights and the unwarranted invasion of their 
peaceful country. Even from Germans I have 
heard no excuses for the violation of Belgium which 
might not have been equally well put forward by 
a needy burglar who breaks into an unprotected 
house and plunders it after bludgeoning its helpless 
inmates. Is it remarkable that the liberty-loving 
Belgian peasant who saw his home destroyed or 
his family abused, knew no sufficient reason why 
he should stand supinely by and welcome the 
destroyer? More brave than wise, too furious 
to reason calmly, he did what he could to retaliate, 
which is against the rules of war. Consequently 
a merciless foe inflicted the uttermost penalty upon 
him, his family, and the whole region in which he 
lived. The world has never witnessed more 
frightful and disproportionate punishments. 

The Germans on the other hand were morally in 
quite a different case. They were the aggressors, 
15 225 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

the treaty breakers, and the invaders of a peaceful 
country of neighbors and friends. Their part 
was to be tolerant and to make allowance for 
individual violations of the rules of war. The 
world at large will never concede that occasional 
instances of sniping can justify the destruction of 
whole villages, the execution of thousands of men, 
and the violation of thousands of women. When 
our American marines occupied Vera Cruz similar 
instances of sniping were frequent. Our men did 
not, however, burn, kill, rape, and pillage. They 
were forced to fire at the custom-house because it 
was occupied by snipers and in so doing they 
incidentally damaged the tower of the building. 
After the fighting was over, the Americans felt 
such regret for even this necessary bit of destruc- 
tion that they rebuilt what their shells had 
damaged. Their only retaliatory action was to 
shoot snipers when they were caught red-handed. 

Monday y December ?th. The German in- 
fantry, after spending a certain length of time at 
the front, are given a vacation and sent home. 
I could not ascertain the exact length of their stay 

in the trenches although it seems to be about a 

226 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

month. The artillery stay continuously on the 
battle-line as their work is less arduous and nerve- 
racking, since they are always somewhat toward 
the rear and usually well housed. Moreover, they 
fire only occasionally and have long periods of 
inactivity. The cavalry spends one week in 
action and then one week in the rear, some ten 
or fifteen miles behind the firing-line. 

Recently I had a long conversation with a Ger- 
man statesman of ambassadorial rank, who spoke 
with intense feeling of the plight of the thousands 
of German subjects, men, women, and children, 
who had been caught in France at the opening of 
the war and interned in detention camps. He 
said: "It is ridiculous for the French to suspect 
any of these people of being spies, for German 
spies are not weak or unprotected, but strong, 
picked men and women, highly trained to make 
technical observations. In the present scientific 
age untechnical observations are valueless. When 

I was Minister Plenipotentiary at there were 

many thousands of German subjects in that city 
and not one of them could have given me informa- 
tion of any possible value to our great General 
Staff. German spies in France are neutral or 

227 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

French in nationality, or pretend to be such, and 
they all carry unimpeachable papers. For a 
man to admit frankly and openly that he is a 
German is proof enough that he is not a spy. 
We in Germany recognize this and do not shut 
up alien enemies who frankly announce their 
nationality." 

It was not fitting that I should enter into diplo- 
matic discussion with a high German official, but 
if I had been talking as man to man, I could have 
reminded him that the spy panic which seized 
Paris at the outbreak of the war was entirely the 
fault of Germany herself, for it is an open secret 
that her spy system is her pet weapon of offense; 
her enemies therefore, naturally, see a spy in every 
Teuton. It is also well understood that, spy or 
no spy, every German man, woman, and child is 
admonished, when traveling in foreign countries, 
to "watch, record, and report anything of interest 
to the German Government. " 

All the accusations that have been brought 
against France, that she did not properly provide 
for her interned prisoners, that she did not ade- 
quately care for her own wounded or the wounded 
of her enemy, that she did not give efficient support 

228 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

to her English allies on the retreat from Mons to 
Compiegne, resolve themselves into one conclusion, 
that she did not want or expect instant war and 
was not prepared for all the emergencies which 
the German attack precipitated. But all the 
world knows that she speedily supplied deficiencies 
and remedied defects with great ability and 
indomitable courage. 

In saying that alien civilians in Germany were 
not interned in prison camps the German diplomat 
evidently thought I knew nothing about the vile 
detention camps at Ruhleben and of the English 
men and women who are there incarcerated to 
suffer beyond anything that the Germans ever 
endured in France. 

Tuesday, December 8th. I went to the Ameri- 
can Embassy this morning to obtain the neces- 
sary paper for my departure tomorrow for 
Vienna. Mr. Grew called me into his private 
office and said that Ambassador Gerard was 
particularly anxious that I should go to London 
instead as he had dispatches of the utmost import- 
ance to send and would feel indebted to me if I 

could take them. He warned me that the under- 

229 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

taking would not be pleasant or altogether safe. 
I promptly accepted the mission, — indeed such re- 
quests are, in the Army, the Navy, and the Diplo- 
matic Service, made only to be accepted. I am to 
leave Berlin Thursday morning at 8:59 and go 
through Germany and Holland to Flushing, where 
I shall take a boat across the North Sea to Folke- 
stone and thence to our Embassy in London. 

This evening I looked over the casualty lists 
posted on the walls of an official building. These 
lists are published on numerous very large sheets 
of white paper. Each sheet has three columns 
in fine print. The names are grouped by regiments 
and companies, so that all the casualties of one 
company appear together; each name is given in 
full, is prefixed by the rank, and followed by the 
nature of the casualty, which is one of five things : 
Gefallen (fallen, killed) ; schwer verwundet (badly 
wounded); verwundet (wounded); leicht ver- 
wundet (lightly wounded) ; vermisst (missing) . A 
casualty list is published every day, comprising 
from forty to fifty of the above-mentioned sheets, 
each sheet containing nearly three hundred 
names. 

230 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 
The last seven sheets were as follows: 

No. 90 published Dec. 1 — 40 sheets 

91 " " 2—50 " 

92 " " 3-52 " 

93 " " 4-44 " 

94 " u 5-52 " 

95 " " 6—48 " 

96 " " 8—48 " 

This gives a rate of more than 12,000 casualties 
a day. The lists are complete up to October 30th. 
Only the last ten lists are kept posted and thus 
tonight there were numbers 87-96. The sheets of 
these ten lists were posted in a double row on the 
outside wall of the building along the sidewalk. 
They extended the length of a block and then 
around the corner another block. As the columns 
of one regiment finished, those of the next com- 
menced. I copied the record of a battalion chosen 
at random. 

Eighty-second Bavarian Casualty List 

nth Infantry Regiment of Regensburg 

Third Battalion 

(Here followed a list of places and dates of 
actions in which the Regiment had taken part) : 

231 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Faxe, August 20th; Manhoue, August 23d; 
Maize and Drouville, August 25th; Tourbeffeaus, 
Sept. 7th to 9th; Spada, Sept. 24th; St. Mihiel, 
Sept. 28th and Oct. 7th to 24th; Ailly, Oct. 1st 
and 2d; Han-sur-Meuse (date illegible). 

(Then followed a detailed list of casualties 
suffered by the four companies of the battalion) : 

Company 9 had a list of 148 casualties, of 
which 18 were killed, 35 missing, 42 wounded and 
badly wounded, and 43 slightly wounded; 

Company 10 followed with a list of 146 names, 
of which 19 were killed, 51 missing, 66 wounded 
and badly wounded, and 46 slightly wounded ; 

The Eleventh Company with a list of 188 names. 

The Twelfth Company with a list of 143 names; 

A German battalion is composed of four com- 
panies of 250 men each. Thus among one thousand 
men there were more than six hundred casualties 
in the first three months of the war, and this 
seemed to be about an average list. These lists 
take no account of those who "died of wounds,'' 
and "missing" is usually a polite way of saying 
"dead." It means that the man was too badly 
hurt to escape, to be helped by his comrades, or 
to crawl back, and probably was left "between 

232 



GERMANY AND BERLIN 

the lines" to die. This explains what at first 
appears to be a singularly small percentage of 
killed. 

Berlin, Wednesday, December gth. This after- 
noon I made my final arrangements for the trip 
to London. Whenever a special messenger de- 
parts with dispatches from the Embassy a Jager 
accompanies him to the train, carries the mail-bags 
and pouch, and sees him safely settled in his 
compartment. When he arrives at his final 
destination another Jager from the Embassy to 
which he is going meets him at the station. 



233 



CHAPTER IX 

CARRYING DISPATCHES FROM BERLIN TO LONDON 

Thursday, December ioih. Soon after the train 
left Berlin this morning I judged that I was being 
shadowed. When it pulled out of the station 
there were four people, including myself, in the 
six-place compartment, the two middle seats being 
vacant, one on my left as I sat next the window 
and the other diagonally facing me. Soon after 
the train was well started two men came in and 
occupied these seats. This in itself was suspicious, 
since people do not seek seats while a train is in 
motion. Both moreover had the air of being 
detectives. I, by this time, know the type well, 
for I have been constantly shadowed ever since 
my arrival in Germany and am perfectly certain 
that my rooms have several times been searched 
while I was absent. I simply continued to behave 
with the greatest possible circumspection, the 

234 



CARRYING DISPATCHES FROM BERLIN 

two detectives meanwhile staring at me constantly 
with fixed intensity. 

It was a bit unpleasant because I did not 
certainly know the nature of the dispatches I 
carried, but realized that they were extremely 
important. They were in a small leather mail 
pouch, padlocked and sealed, which I had set on 
the floor between my feet and knees. Everything 
went quietly for some two hours. I could not 
look out of the window in towns and yards because 
I might have seen troop-trains, factories, etc., and 
that would have been " indiscreet.' ' The part of 
Germany from Berlin to Holland is utterly flat 
and uninteresting, so that there was no pleasure 
in looking at the countryside between stations. 
I pretended to doze, or read three German weeklies 
which I had bought. One of these finally pre- 
cipitated matters. It was the Fliegende Blatter, 
a comic paper of about the class of Life or 
Punch. There was in it a joke in German argot 
which had been too much for my scant knowledge 
of the language and the courier who had escorted 
me from the Embassy had by the merest hazard 
translated it for me. In my desperate efforts to 
amuse myself I was looking through this sheet 

235 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

again and encountering this joke thought, "If I 
don't write down the English I shall forget it." 
Whereupon I took out a pencil and wrote the 
translation interlinearly. 

Soon afterwards one of the detectives got up, 
went out into the corridor, and came back with 
three conductors who, in Germany, of course, are 
military officials. The three civilians who had 
shared the compartment left us as if they had been 
rehearsed. One of the detectives then suddenly 
burst into a perfect berserker rage, getting quite 
purple in the face, and snatching up the Flieg- 
ende Blatter proceeded carefully to turn over the 
pages again and again, holding each page against 
the light. It was altogether melodramatically 
ridiculous. Taking the paper from me in this 
way, although offensive, was perhaps within his 
rights since it concerned me only in a personal 
and not in an official way, and so I sat quite 
calmly in my seat and, biding my time, made no 
move of any kind. I paid no attention to the 
conductors, judging the detective to be the king- 
pin and the conductors merely dragged in as a 
matter of routine. None of them could read 
English and they chose to regard the interlinea- 

236 



CARRYING DISPATCHES FROM BERLIN 

tion (one line of about ten words) as extraordi- 
narily suspicious. 

The detective asked me for my passports and 
did so without going through the customary 
formality of showing his police card. I demanded 
as a matter of routine that he do this and began 
to draw out of my pocket the large envelope in 
which I keep all my documents in order to take 
out my Eagle-stamped German courier's paper. 
Without complying with my request he grabbed 
for this envelope, while at the same moment some- 
one jerked at the bag which was between my knees. 
All this was an affair totally different from that of 
the Fliegende Blatter. I had thoroughly thought 
out what I would do in- an emergency if German 
officials should attempt to take my pouch from 
me, and had decided that I should make enough 
of a resistance so that there should be no possi- 
bility of disputing the fact that physical force had 
been used and an assault committed. This would 
"let me out," since a dispatch-bearer cannot be 
expected successfully to defend himself against 
the whole Germany army. Incidentally I might 
add that interference in any way with the dis- 
patch-bearer of a neutral country is a very heinous 

237 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

international and diplomatic sin. I therefore 
jerked my envelope of papers rudely out of the 
detective's hand and gave him a vigorous shove, 
resisting an almost overwhelming temptation to 
hit him with all my might on his fat, unprotected 
jaw. I had half risen to my feet, meanwhile 
keeping a grip on the dispatch bag with my knees, 
and at the same time I vigorously swung my hips 
and freed myself from the man below. The de- 
tective struck the opposite wall of the compart- 
ment and bounced off toward the doorway, where 
he and the conductors stood jabbering and waving 
their arms and ever getting more and more purple 
in the face. 

Finally the detective showed his police card, 
and I then extended to them my Eagle-stamped 
courier passport, following it with my Embassy 
credential and my certificate of identity or per- 
sonal passport. These three made a complete 
case and I refused to show anything more, in- 
sisting that my status had been adequately es- 
tablished. The officials continued to jabber and 
argue, having been continuously impolite during 
the entire episode, a mode of behavior which was 
a notable divergence from my previous experi- 

238 



CARRYING DISPATCHES FROM BERLIN 

ences with agents of the Imperial Secret Service. 
The chief detective, whose name was Werther, 
continued to hang around, trying to talk with me, 
evidently determined to get further information 
about my plans. 

I do not pretend to judge whether all this was 
mere accidental clumsiness and rudeness on the 
part of stupid detectives or if it was something 
very much deeper, prompted by someone higher 
up. One is, however, inclined to doubt inefficiency 
in the Prussian Secret Service and there may have 
been reasons why German authorities would count 
it of great importance to know the contents of my 
pouch. 

At the Embassy in Berlin I had been told to 
change trains at a place called Lohne where I was 
to arrive at two o'clock. Just before reaching this 
point, the conductor came through and told me 
that it would be much more convenient for me to 
stay on the train until Essen, that this would give 
me one less change in my journey to Flushing, 
and that it was altogether a better route. (I must 
remark that, besides the bag in hand, I had in the 
baggage car all the routine mail for the State 
Department in Washington, amounting to some 

239 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

two hundred and fifty pounds in two big leather 
mail-sacks.) Although I replied that I thought it 
better to change at Lohne anyway, the conductor 
insisted upon my following his plan. He was 
backed up by the detective, who, except for various 
goings out and in, had remained facing me. They 
informed me that in any event my mail-bags in 
the baggage car would go through to Essen. As 
by this time the train was already slowing 
up for the station at Lohne, I accepted the 
inevitable. 

Essen is not on the most direct route to Goch 
where one crosses the German border into Holland, 
and in consequence I arrived in Goch via Essen 
much too late to catch the last train from there to 
Flushing. Since boats leave Flushing only once a 
day, early in the morning, I had to lose one whole 
day and was compelled to remain another night 
on German soil. 

I do not pretend to offer any explanation for 
these strange happenings. I was followed con- 
stantly thereafter, as previously, the men being 
cleverly changed at every opportunity. My every 
step was dogged. At Wesel a detective sat at the 

same table in the station restaurant while I ate 

240 



CARRYING DISPATCHES FROM BERLIN 

dinner. Such being the case I was, to say the 
least, a bit annoyed. 

At Essen during a fifteen-minute wait for a 
change of trains, I withdrew to one end of the 
platform after having rechecked the two big mail- 
sacks. I was standing alone, with a detective, 
as usual, off in the background, when a man who 
looked a typical raw-boned Englishman drew near 
and hung around, staring at me. I looked him up 
and down and then turned my back thinking, 
11 Another detective!" It was impossible to 
believe that an Englishman could be, of all places, 
in Essen. He finally approached me, saying in 
English of a most perfect and pronounced British 
accent, "Are you an American?" I replied, 
"Yes, are you a police officer? If so, please show 
me your card." He replied, "No, I am in a 
delicate position. I am trying to go to England 
this evening. I have American papers. You 

must see me through. I am ." I cut him 

short by saying that I regretted, etc., and de- 
liberately walked away. From that time on this 
man dogged me everywhere, trying to pass 
through gates with me and to get into the same 

compartments, even following me to the same 
16 241 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

hotels and restaurants, and trying to make any- 
thing he could out of my presence. I never lost 
sight of him for long until we finally set foot in 
England, where he did finally arrive, in spite of 
some very close shaves. I last saw him giving me 
a very ugly look as I landed at Folkestone. What- 
ever his nationality, he certainly was a spy in the 
German service. 

An uneventful journey of some four hours across 
Holland brought me to Vlissingen, as the Dutch 
call Flushing, and there I spent the afternoon, 
wandering about in boredom, trying to pass away 
the slow hours until the boat arrived and I could 
climb into my berth. 

London, Saturday, December I2lh. We had an 
exciting trip across the North Sea, taking zigzag 
courses to avoid mine-fields and sighting numerous 
destroyers and one sunken ship. We successfully 
avoided either hitting a mine or running into a 
torpedo. The boat was packed down with Belgian 
and French refugees. One Luxembourger had 
been a whole month getting to Flushing from 
his home in Belgium. I was much relieved 
when I arrived at Victoria Station with my 

242 



CARRYING DISPATCHES FROM BERLIN ] 

pouch and found a clerk from the Embassy 
waiting for me, and still more relieved when 
we had deposited all the bags safely at their 
destination. 

Sunday, December 13th. I went to the Em- 
bassy this morning for a conference with the 
American Military Attaches; and later took 
luncheon with one of the Secretaries. I had 
cabled to Paris to have my mail sent on to meet me 
in London, but it did not arrive; I have, therefore, 
had no letters from home in some weeks. I cannot 
telegraph to America details of my future plans. 
Imagine the face of any British telegraph operator 
if I were to hand him a cable saying: " I am leaving 
again for Berlin and Vienna," which is exactly 
what I am to do. I return immediately with 
dispatches from England to our Embassies in 
Germany and Austria. My plans are subject to 
modification by official orders, but I shall prob- 
ably remain in Berlin only one day and then go to 
Vienna and Budapest. The bag I am to take to 
Berlin contains not only official dispatches, but a 
large sum of money. 

England has well prepared herself for a Zep- 
243 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

pelin raid. Every skylight and the top of every 
street lamp in London is painted black. 

Tuesday, December i$th. An officer of the 
staff has given me an interesting theory as to the 
disconcerting effect produced by the bursting 
of the big German shells on the morale of the 
troops — how disconcerted no one can imagine 
who has not himself experienced it. He was 
himself near such a shell when it exploded. It 
rendered him unconscious. He was blind for 
some time, deaf for two weeks, and suffered from 
loss of memory for over a month, — and all this 
without any surgical wound. He thinks the 
nervous effect produced by the explosions at a 
distance is due in a lesser degree to the same sort 
of shock. On one occasion a number of big shells 
exploded in succession a hundred yards from a 
trench; and although no one was wounded or 
suffered any physical injury, such was the de- 
moralizing effect of the nervous shock that all the 
men in the trench fled and did not recover balance 
until they had run a quarter of a mile. Meeting 
a staff officer and receiving from him a stiff 

reprimand they all returned to their posts. 

244 



Li 




CARRYING DISPATCHES FROM BERLIN 

The whole episode took place without any 
casualties. 

I leave for Folkestone this evening, where I 
spend the night on board ship. The boat sails for 
Flushing after daybreak. 

On the North Sea, December 16th. It has been a 
wonderful stormy day today; as an officer said: 
"a typical North Sea winter day" — a leaden sky, 
roaring wind, smothers of rain, great black-green 
waves all flecked and blotched in white, big sea 
birds and little gulls dipping down the wave 
valleys and soaring up the wave mountains, and 
the ship taking the most foolish and impossible 
angles. It was an odd thing to see the gulls which 
followed the ship, all pointing the other way, in 
order to maintain their position relatively to the 
boat and against the heavy wind coming up 
from astern. At lunch the dishes jumped the 
racks and smashed along the floor; on the return 
heave all the fragments rushed back the entire 
width of the dining saloon. Eating was difficult. 

Two hours out a British destroyer came dashing 

up in our wake, making two feet to our one. She 

was a most picturesque sight, long, low, and 

245 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

speedy, painted black; her towering knife-prow 
thrust out in front and the long, low hull strung 
out behind. She "brought us to" with a shot 
across the bows, and as we wallowed in the trough 
of the sea, she went by to starboard fairly shaving 
our side. The officer on her bridge, over which 
great waves of spray and water broke at every 
moment, " looked us over" and then bellowed 
orders to our Captain through a megaphone. My 
unpractised ear could not through the roar of the 
wind and the slap of the waves catch all he had to 
say, but it was something about submarines and 
a naval battle to the northward and orders to 
change and take a different course through the 
mine fields. 1 Whereupon we pursued a very 
zigzag course. In a moment we would turn 120 
degrees and proceed for miles on the new tack. 
We took at one time or another nearly all direc- 
tions of the compass. Sometimes the smoke from 
the funnels went off straight at right angles to our 
course; at others it preceded us. 

1 It was on this morning that the German fleet bombarded the 
towns on the east coast of England. 



246 



CHAPTER X 

VIENNA 

Vienna, Saturday, December igth. I remained 
in Berlin only one day and started this morning 
for Vienna with dispatches, arriving late in the 
evening after an uneventful fourteen-hour journey. 

Sunday, December 20th. I presented myself at 
the American Embassy this morning, delivered my 
dispatches, and had a conference with Mr. Grant- 
Smith, the First Secretary. At luncheon I met 
Colonel Biddle, an officer in the Engineer Corps of 
the United States Army, who has recently arrived 
in Austria in order to go to the front as a military 
observer. The afternoon and evening I spent 
with Captain Briggs, Military Attache at the 
Embassy, studying and comparing the military 
methods of the eastern and western fronts. Cap- 
tain Briggs has collected, with an energy and 
intelligence that can fairly be called amazing, an 

247 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

immense quantity of valuable military informa- 
tion relative to the operations and practices of the 
Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Serbian 
armies. 

The Austrian army officers and privates suffer 
by comparison with the Germans. The soldiers 
one sees in the streets of Berlin are big, husky, 
strong, healthy creatures, with jowls hanging 
over their collars. The officers are clean-cut, 
keen-eyed, and in splendid health and training. 
Austria seems distraught and unready for emer- 
gencies, the people are not as keen for the war as 
the Germans and appear to be more indifferent as 
to its results. I am predicting that the end of the 
war will see Japan, Italy, and Roumania gainers, 
and Belgium, Turkey, and Austria losers, while 
Germany and England will be approximately in 
the same positions as before the war. Russia has 
relatively little to gain or lose. 

Monday, December 21st. I had a walk and 

talk with Ambassador Penfield this morning; 

took luncheon with Mr. Grant-Smith and went 

afterward to the Embassy. Later in the after- 

248 



VIENNA 

noon I went with Count Colloredo von Mansfeld 
to the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office and then 
called on the Countess Potatka to whom I had 
brought letters of introduction. 

Tuesday, December 2 2d. After luncheon today 
Mr. Grant-Smith presented me to Wilhelm 
Prince zu Stollberg Wering Rode, Conseiller of 
the German Embassy in Vienna, who made an 
appointment with me for Thursday. 

I am meeting many officials, American, German, 
and Austrian, but at present I cannot, without 
indiscretion, state just what they discuss. 

I went today to the Wiener Bank Verein with 
Mr. Grant-Smith who wished to arrange some 
safe deposit boxes for the Embassy. The building 
is said to be the most beautiful bank building in 
the world, and I can easily believe it. Knowing my 
professional interest in architecture, Mr. Grant- 
Smith asked the Director to show me the building, 
which he most kindly did, taking me from top to 
bottom — a privilege I am told seldom granted to 
anyone, and for which I was very grateful. 

Austria-Hungary is an extraordinary country. 

I doubt if anything like it exists in this our day 

249 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

and generation. The Emperor- King is everything. 
He could well say without exaggeration "L'Etat 
c'est Moi!" The common people really look upon 
the king as divine. Socialism and democracy do 
not exist, — the words seem to have no real mean- 
ing for his subjects; and Parliaments are but his 
dutiful servants. Lese-majesty is almost unheard 
of because the idea of questioning the Emperor- 
King or anything he does would no more occur to 
his subjects than to doubt the Immaculate Con- 
ception would occur to a devout Catholic. 

And what an extraordinary old man — what a 
relic of past ages this Emperor-King Franz Josef 
is! He ascended the throne at the epoch of our 
war with Mexico, he had reigned nearly two 
decades at the termination of our Civil War. 
He refutes and blights the theories of Dr. Osier. 
Two successive heirs to the throne have died or 
been killed off, but he "goes on forever. * ' He is 
personally a very devout Catholic, but apparently 
has seldom or never allowed himself to be politi- 
cally dictated to by the Vatican. When he learned 
of the recent ignominious defeat of his armies by 
the Serbians and of the retaking of Belgrade, the 
old man first burst into a furious rage and then 

250 



VIENNA 

sat down with elbows on the table, his head in his 
hands, and prayed for forgiveness and future 
successes. 

In Austria's history one discovers no victories. 
She is an unusual and pliant State to survive so 
many defeats. One finds her the easy prey of 
Frederick the Great, the pet victim of Louis XIV., 
the foe against whom Napoleon made his first 
youthful efforts and the vanquished of his prime, 
the defeated foe of Napoleon III. , the vanquished 
tyrant of Italy united, the loser in Prussia's 
Thirty Days' War of 1867, and now the gradual 
loser against Russia's wild, numberless hordes. 
She has already lost all of Galicia and stands with 
her back to the Carpathians and has been held off 
on equal terms by Serbia these four months past. 
A supine State, she is always defeated, and yet 
always remains and ever grows. 

Austrian money is now greatly depreciated. In 
ordinary times one gets about 487 crowns for 
$100, while today one obtains 575. American 
money has at present the highest rate of exchange. 

Wednesday, December 2jd. This morning I had 
a most interesting interview with Count Szecsen, 

251 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE \ 

the Austrian ex-Ambassador to France, and 
spent the afternoon in conference with Captain 
Briggs. 

Thursday, December 24th. I made a verbal re- 
port to Prince zu Stollberg this morning on the 
situation of German subjects in France. After 
luncheon I had a most interesting talk with Mr. 
Nelson O'Shaughnessy, of Mexican fame, who is 
Conseiller at the Embassy. Later I went for a 
most delightful automobile ride with Ambassador 
Penfield, who showed me the Prater, the Danube, 
the Basin, the Exposition Building, and the Ring. 
Afterward Mr. Thomas Hinckley, the second 
secretary, took me to see the Christmas tree in the 
American Hospital, all ready for tomorrow's fete 
for the wounded soldiers. 

Friday, December 2$th. It seems very triste to 
be way off next to Asia on Christmas Day, on the 
day when one most wants to be at home. How- 
ever, I had two Christmas feasts and a warm 
welcome into two American homes. I took 
luncheon with Mr. and Mrs. Nelson O'Shaugh- 
nessy and dinner with Captain and Mrs. Briggs, 

252 



VIENNA 

enjoyable visits that made a happy day out of 
what would otherwise have been a very sad one. 
In Vienna, as in Berlin, the fashionable hours 
are very late and one is more or less forced to 
follow them. Nothing happens before noon and 
evening entertainments end somewhere in the 
early morning hours. 

Sunday, December 27th. This morning I was 
allowed by special permission to visit the Impe- 
rial Museum, which is closed to the public on 
account of the war. I took luncheon with Mr. 
Cardeza, Attache to the Embassy, and dined with 
Mr. O'Shaughnessy. The American diplomats 
in Vienna and Berlin generally have been very 
much isolated since the war began, and in each 
place the corps has become much like a big family 
whose members see a great deal of one another. 

Count Berchtold, whom I have seen on several 
occasions, is a wiry man of medium height, always 
grave, intent and all-observing under a mask of 
stolidity. He never "talks" and seldom speaks. 
When he does he is terse and speaks out of one 
corner of his mouth as if reluctant to let the words 

253 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

escape. He is, however, noted for the most un- 
failing and perfect manners. It is said he can 
hear perfectly every separate conversation that 
may be carried on in any room where he happens 
to be present, and not only hears what is spoken 
but catches every little motion or hint of import- 
ant matters. Such is the man whose hand 
struck the match that lit the long-prepared 
conflagration in which the total military casualties 
alone already far exceed five million. 

Monday, December 28th. I went again to the 
Imperial Museum this morning and later took 
luncheon with the Count Colloredo von Mans- 
feld, to meet Conseiller Black Pasha of the 
Turkish Embassy. Conferences at the Embassy 
with Captain Briggs, Mr. Grant- Smith, and Mr. 
Hinckley. 

The man who did as much to bring about this 
war as any single agency was the German Am- 
bassador to Vienna, Heinrich von Tschirski und 
BogendorfT. 

I sent home today by cable our code-word 
"greetings" as a New Year's message. It goes 

254 



VIENNA 

through the Embassy here in Vienna and the 
State Department at Washington. It cost me 
eighteen crowns, but I know it will be worth many 
times that to my family, as it must be some weeks 
now since they have had news from me. 



^55 



CHAPTER XI 



HUNGARY 



Budapest, Tuesday, December 2gih. I left Vienna 
at nine o'clock this morning and reached Budapest 
at two. I had tea with Mrs. Gerard, who is in Bud- 
apest visiting her sister, Countess Sigray. I called 
at the home of Count Albert Apponyi to leave 
my card and letters of introduction. I dined with 
Mrs. Gerard and the Count and Countess Sigray. 

The great Hungarian plain, bounded by the 
Carpathians on the east and by the Danube and 
the Save on the south has been inhabited by the 
Hungarian people for more than a thousand years. 
The inhabitants of this plain number about sixteen 
millions at the present time. They pride them- 
selves upon the fact that they have maintained 
their national entity since the Ninth Century, 
although they have stood alone and exposed in the 
middle of Europe, without any of the geographical 

256 



HUNGARY 

advantages which accrue from a situation of in- 
sular isolation such as has been enjoyed by the 
English. 

The world in general insists in thinking of Hun- 
gary as an Austrian province and in counting 
Austria-Hungary one country, whose name has 
been hyphenated with the sole purpose of incon- 
veniencing conversation in foreign countries. As 
a matter of fact, Hungary and Austria are two 
distinct nations, inhabited by antagonistic races 
who speak different languages and hold different 
ideals. The Hungarians are of Magyar descent 
and speak a beautiful, musical language, while the 
Austrians are a mixture of many races whose 
common tongue is a borrowed, unclassical Ger- 
man. Each country has its own government, its 
own parliament, and its own cabinet officers. The 
Hungarian nobility regard the Austrian nobles as 
mere upstarts. Nothing is so displeasing to a 
Hungarian as to be called an Austrian, or to be 
told that Austrians and Hungarians are one and 
the same people. 

Surrounded by three powerful enemies, the 
Turks, the Austrians, and the Slavs, they have not 
succeeded in continuously maintaining their liberty 
17 257 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

during the ten centuries of their existence as a 
nation. They came under the domination of the 
Turks during the sixteenth century, but under the 
leadership of Prince Eugene they with the assist- 
ance of Austria succeeded in liberating themselves 
in 1 716. In 1848 they were subjugated by Austria 
assisted by Russia and ever since that time have 
looked forward with confident anticipation to the 
day when they may be strong enough to become 
again an independent nation. The diplomats, 
statesmen, and scholars of their noble families have 
labored so astutely and successfully towards this 
end, that the state of bondage which succeeded 
the conquest of 1848 has gradually and by suc- 
cessive moves been lightened, until today their 
relations with Austria may be approximated by 
the statement that Franz Josef, King of Hungary, 
happens to be at the same time Emperor of Austria, 
and that the two nations have a close defensive 
and offensive military alliance. In order to pro- 
mote the efficiency of this alliance, their War and 
Foreign Relations ministries are united into single 
organizations. There is one Austro-Hungarian 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, but there are separate 
Ministers of Education, Agriculture, etc. History 

258 



HUNGARY 

shows that the salvation of Hungary has often 
depended upon the ability of her leaders to play 
their three powerful neighbors against one another. 
In the present war they are making use of alli- 
ances with Austria and Turkey, the two most 
decadent of their three historic enemies, in order 
to stem the onrush of Russia, their third and most 
powerful antagonist. They are a people ever 
faithful to their alliances even to the point of 
unselfishness. 

Thursday, December Jist. Budapest is one of 
the most beautiful cities I have seen. The great 
Danube, deep, magnificent, and rapid — 500 yards 
wide — flows by, with Buda on its right bank and 
Pest on its left. Great hills sheer out of the water 
and on them are the government buildings and 
the Royal Palace. The humbler structures cluster 
in the valleys between the hills. Most of the 
architecture of the town is very good and the 
worst of it is better than the average elsewhere. 
The river, spanned by four handsome bridges, is 
skirted on either side by drives and official build- 
ings; museums and expensive hotels face these 
drives. The city is in every way very modern, 

259 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

with broad avenues, excellent street-car systems, 
and clean, well-lit streets. 

Friday, January I, IQ15. I spent today in 
sightseeing, — the first day in several weeks that 
I have been free from social engagements. I took 
a guide from the hotel in order to waste no time 
and miss no sights that one ought to enjoy. We 
went to the public market, the Industrial Museum, 
the Art Museum, the public park, and the Cathe- 
dral. My guide was a most convulsing person. 
He was supposed to speak "perfect English," 
but achieved some extraordinary effects. Would 
you know what "sinkim pork" might mean? He 
said, "everyone eats it on New Year's Day," and 
so I perceived it to be "sucking pig. " 

Some provisions have gone up in price; flour is 
doubled in value and the government has had to 
fix a maximum legal price. Meat and game are 
cheaper than usual, perhaps because many people 
are killing and selling their animals to save the 
grain which would otherwise have to be used to 
feed them. 

The utter ignorance of the people concerning 

everything that is happening outside of Vienna 

260 



HUNGARY 

and Budapest is amazing. The government has 
somehow convinced the people that everything 
in the war is going wonderfully well, and this in 
the face of the unsuppressible facts that there are 
at present no Austrians in Serbia and that the 
Russians hold all Galicia and have been through 
the Carpathians. 

Saturday, January 2d. The German comic 
paper Simplicissimus recently made a cartoon 
comment on the Austro-Hungarian army and 
the whole issue was suppressed by the censor in 
Austria and Hungary. The drawing showed a 
group of three Austrians, a general, an officer, 
and a private. The soldier had a lion's head, 
the officer an ass's head, and the general had 
no head at all. 

Austria and Germany have not as yet produced 
one "great man." The Allies have two — Joffre 
and Kitchener and possibly a third in Delcasse. 

The Austrian Emperor is a little man, slightly 
stooped, rather shriveled-up and possessed of a 
pair of keen, shrewd eyes. He is an able follower 
of the Emperor Ferdinand who once replied to the 
statement that a certain one of his subjects was a 

261 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

patriot by saying: ''I don't care if he's patriotic 
for the country, but is he patriotic for me?" 
Franz Josef is cold, pitiless, and does not hesitate 
to ruin in a moment his most faithful servitor if he 
is at any time guilty of failure, or commits a blun- 
der. Even when a minister or general is forced to 
carry out an order in spite of strong protests, he 
has relentlessly broken him if any catastrophe has 
resulted. A notable case is that of the general 
who commanded the Austrian armies in the battle 
of Sadowa. 

Sunday, January 3d. I have managed to get 
in a good deal of reading on boats, trains, and 
at odd moments since I left Paris, and it has en- 
larged my comprehension of this war. I have 
carefully studied every book on the war and sub- 
jects related to it. I have read several times 
each the books of Bernhardi, Nietzsche, and Steed's 
11 Hapsburg Monarchy." 

Monday \ January 4th. In Hungary there are 

few princes or dukes; the highest nobles are 

counts, whose titles retain something of the old 

significance of hereditary rulers of a "county." 

262 



HUNGARY 

The serfs have only recently been liberated and to 
all intents and purposes the feudal system still 
exists, in spirit if not in form. Among the counts 
in Hungary, several stand out conspicuously above 
the rest; among them are the Karolyis, the 
Apponyis, the Hunyadis, and the Wenkheims, all 
of whom are interconnected by marriage and close 
social relations. These people maintain them- 
selves on their vast estates like rulers of small 
principalities. 

At the request of the Countess X. I had written 
to her mother, the Countess W., before leaving 
Vienna, and found her answer awaiting me at the 
Consul's office when I arrived in Budapest. I 
learn that she also communicated with Count 
Berchtold, the Prime Minister of the Empire, 
with Count Szecsen, ex- Ambassador to France, 
and with the Hungarian Premier, so that in case 
I missed her letters (she sent me one to Vienna and 
one to Budapest) these gentlemen would see to it 
that I went to visit her, as she wished to thank me 
personally for what I had been able to do for her 
daughter, and also to hear direct news of her 
grandchildren. 

I left Budapest early this afternoon and 
263 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

arrived after dark at Bekescsaba, which is about 
half-way to Belgrade. I was met by a major- 
domo who appropriated my luggage and led me to 
a private car on a private railroad belonging to the 
Countess. We started immediately and ran in 
about twenty minutes to the gate of the estate 
where she usually resides. Here I was carefully 
transferred into a waiting carriage and was 
tenderly tucked into numerous fur rugs by two 
or three strong men. The two splendid horses 
turned through the gates for a ten-minute drive 
across a beautiful park to the castle — and such a 
castle! It is equal in size and charm to some 
of the famous French chateaux along the Loire 
which I studied last spring. 

I was carefully unpacked again under a splendid 
porte-cochere and ushered by numerous flunkies 
into the presence of the Countess. She received 
me in a tremendous room with a lofty ceiling, and 
in a preliminary talk of an hour she took off the 
first keen edge of her appetite for news. 

My bedroom is perfectly huge and has two 

ante-rooms — for the personal servants whom I do 

not possess. We dined at eight, there being at the 

table, besides the Countess, a daughter and her 

264 



HUNGARY 

companion, a Frenchwoman. During dinner the 
Countess mentioned that the war necessitated 
frequent readjustments in the management of her 
estates; that the military authorities had recently 
taken another five hundred of her men for service 
in the army. She asked me if I enjoyed hunting 
and, upon receiving an affirmative answer, said 
that she would send me for an hour or two with 
the pheasants in the morning. She warned me 
that the shooting would be poor because no care 
had been taken of the preserves since her sons 
departed for the war. 

Bekescsaba, Tuesday, January 5th. I was 
awakened at nine by a valet who came in, opened 
the blinds, shut the windows, brought the break- 
fast specified by me last night, and assisted me to 
bathe and dress. 

At ten I paid my regards to the Countess and 

then the chasseur-en-chef who was to take me 

for the morning's sport was presented to me. I 

climbed into a shooting wagon, which then drove 

across fields some twenty minutes to a woody 

country. I was provided with two beautiful little 

English " 16-bore, M one of which was carried by a 

265 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

loader who walked always behind my right elbow. 
The game was pheasants, partridges, and hares, 
the latter perfectly enormous, being thirty inches 
long when held up by the feet. While hunting I 
was followed at a respectful distance by the shoot- 
ing wagon in which I was expected to ride when 
going farther than fifty yards, and by another 
wagon which was to carry the game I was expected 
to kill. The game was all natural wild game, not 
the domesticated kind of the English system. 
The chasseur had with him a dozen peasant boys 
as beaters. I "walked up" and "flushed" game 
myself, except when there was a particularly good 
bit of cover; then I was conducted ahead with 
many bows to a well-selected spot, whereupon the 
beaters in a line began at a distance of a hundred 
yards and "worked through," knocking their 
sticks together, a process that several times re- 
sulted in my being absolutely overrun by a burst 
of pheasants flushing from all directions, flying at 
all heights and angles and traveling like bullets. 
In two hours I killed seventy-three pheasants and 
partridges and twenty-three hares, and this in 
6pite of the fact that my shooting was erratic. 
Thus at one spot I killed eight pheasants with as 

266 



HUNGARY 

many shells without changing my feet (it was 
there that the loader was useful) and then a few 
minutes later missed five running. 

At noon the young Countess drove out with her 
French companion to join me. She watched the 
shooting until half after twelve and then drove 
me home for luncheon. It is the custom for the 
men who start shooting early to be sought out and 
brought home to luncheon by the ladies, or to be 
joined by them for lunch in the woods in case of an 
all-day shoot. The game is shot only by the 
nobles and their guests and there seem to be no 
Robin Hoods among the devoted peasantry. 

If this shooting to which I had been treated was 
considered by the Countess to need an apology, 
I was curious to ascertain what she called really 
good hunting, and so I propounded the question. 
She replied quite seriously that the best shooting 
to be had upon her estates was hare shooting and 
that on a good day five guns were usually expected 
to kill four thousand between the hours of ten 
and three. 

To an American it is very extraordinary to see 

feudalism in full swing; to have every person whom 

267 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE, 

one meets anywhere, stop, raise his hat, and make 
a deep obeisance; to have even the slightest word 
or request to anyone answered with a low bow and 
an instantly bared head. It is still more surpris- 
ing to realize how sincere and devoted is all this 
homage. Everyone for miles around acts in this 
same way to the Countess, to her daughter, and, of 
course, to any of their guests. To an American 
it all seems several hundred years out of date. 

Wednesday, January 6th. There were guests 
for dinner tonight, nobles from neighboring estates. 
One of the men is about to start on an automobile 
trip to the Serbian and Carpathian fronts. He is 
to be away some four or five days, leaving on 
Monday. He begged me to go with him but I 
resisted the temptation, for I am now forty-nine 
hours* travel from London and must soon be 
turning my face westward. 

I went to mass this morning in the little plaster 
church of a village near the castle. The acolytes 
were small peasant boys, and whenever they knelt 
down they turned toward the congregation pro- 
digious boot-soles studded with a surprising array 

of shiny hob-nails. 

268 



HUNGARY 

Thursday, January ?th. In bidding me good- 
bye last night, the Countess took my hand in both 
of hers and before the assembled dinner party 
thanked me for my services to her daughter and 
said she appreciated my having given her two v 
days of my valuable time ; — all of which she did in 
so gracious and charming a manner that I not 
only was not embarrassed, but felt it was reward 
enough for any two trips to the front. 

Nearly all my conversations since entering 
Austria-Hungary have been carried on in French, 
since it is spoken by virtually everyone with 
whom I have come in contact. In Hungary all 
the people of consequence speak four languages, 
Hungarian, German, French, and English, but 
French is generally preferred to English by all ex- 
cept those to whom English is the native tongue. 

I left B6kescsaba at nine this morning and 
arrived in Budapest early in the afternoon. 

Budapest, Friday, January 8th. I lunched to- 
day with Consul-General Coffin and dined with 
Countess Sigray. 

Saturday, January pth. Yesterday on my 
arrival in Budapest I found awaiting me an 

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invitation from Count Albert Apponyi to visit 
him at his castle at Eberhard, near Pozsony. I 
left Budapest at eight, reached Pozsony about 
eleven, and drove to Eberhard, where I was re- 
ceived by the Count. 

I was extremely impressed on meeting Count 
Apponyi. I had anticipated something unusual, 
but he was quite beyond my expectations. He is 
about six feet three inches tall, has a splendidly 
erect carriage, and is a most impressively hand- 
some man. He has a broad well-shaped forehead 
sloping back steeply, splendid blue-gray eyes, the 
biggest thinnest nose in the world, enormous nos- 
trils, a strong sensitive mouth, and a grayish 
square-cut beard. The "grand old man of 
Hungary" looked up to his title. 

He has been a member of the Hungarian Par- 
liament for forty-two years and has several times 
held ministerial portfolios. His progressive ideas 
have usually landed him in the position of leader 
of the opposition. He has invariably been Hun- 
gary's representative at all international meet- 
ings, peace conferences, and inter-parliamentary 
unions. He is a decade ahead of his day and 
generation, being probably the most progressive 

270 



HUNGARY 

man in all Hungary. This, coupled with his blood, 
his magnificent appearance, and his wonderful edu- 
cation, make him an extraordinary power in the 
affairs of the kingdom. He has twice been in 
America. He has several times visited ex-Presi- 
dent Roosevelt at the White House and at Saga- 
more Hill, and the Colonel has been a guest here 
at Eberhard. The Count also knows intimately 
such men as Lowell, Untermyer, Butler, and 
Taft, and appreciates their ideas, — "the American 
idea " as he calls it. It is no wonder that the other 
less advanced Hungarian nobles criticize his ideas 
and methods. 

The Count's French is exquisite, and he speaks 
English as I have seldom heard it spoken, — as 
the cultivated Frenchman speaks French, — with 
purpose, with science, as an art. His enunciation 
is wonderful and he instinctively picks out words 
to aid rhythm and enunciation. Of his native 
language, Hungarian, and of his German, I am 
not capable of judging. 

I admired the Count's library. Three sides of 

the big room were covered with filled shelves, 

which lapped over into the rooms on either side. 

Such a conglomeration of books; — leather bind- 

271 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACH^ 

ings, cloth, paper, stacks of pamphlets, all jumbled 
together and yet in order. The books were indis- 
criminately in French, German, Hungarian, Latin, 
Italian, English, and Greek, all languages which 
the Count knows with great thoroughness. In 
reply to my admiring comment, he looked around 
the library a bit sadly, I thought, and said slowly : 
" Yes, it means much to me. It has grown out of 
my life." 

The Apponyi castle has stood in its present 
shape for over two hundred years. Like all con- 
temporaneous residences of feudal chiefs, it was 
built primarily for defense and this determines 
its general structure. It is square with a great 
court in the center, in the middle of which is a 
well-house. The castle walls are of stone nearly 
three feet thick, plastered over with cement and 
painted white. It is two stories high with a steep 
ungabled roof and is virtually guiltless of archi- 
tecture. The only entrance to the building is 
through an archway leading under the front face 
into the interior court. No outside windows ex- 
isted in the original structure but many have 
since been cut into it. The castle reveals many 

signs of age. The floors in all the halls and rooms, 

272 



HUNGARY 

except those of the salons, are of stone, and little 
uneven hollows on their surfaces show where the 
feet of many generations have left their mark. 
The libraries and salons, six or seven in number, 
were remodeled some time during the last century 
and are remarkably fine. 

At present one side of the castle has been 
converted into a hospital and here some twenty- 
five wounded Hungarian soldiers are cared for. 

At luncheon there were as guests the Count and 
Countess Karolyi Hunyadi and two of their sons, 
and the Countess Herberstein, whose husband is 
a general in the army. 

Sunday, January ioth. I had the honor of a 
very interesting walk and talk with Count Ap- 
ponyi this morning. Among other things he said: 
"I sometimes let my younger daughter (aged 12) 
play with the children of the peasants on the place. 
It gives her an understanding of life, and besides, 
there is no one of her own age and rank in this 
part of the country." This for a Hungarian 
nobleman is an extremely democratic remark. 

The mass in Count Albert's private chapel 
was most interesting. The chapel is built into 
is 273 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACH^ 

the castle as a part of it. The family assembled in 
a little oratory or balcony giving off the second- 
floor hall. From this oratory one looked down 
upon the service and upon the peasants crowded 
together below. It was glassed in so that one 
viewed the spectacle through windows, so to 
speak. These had two panes which could be 
opened if one desired to hear more clearly the 
service or sermon. 

In a long conversation, Count Apponyi, in an- 
swer to my questions, made the following state- 
ments as to Hungary's attitude in the war, which 
he defined as being a conflict between Orientalism 
and Occidentalism : 

"You who live in America do not have to con- 
sider or define the differences between Occiden- 
talism and Orientalism. You are geographically 
isolated from Orientalism and are so axiomatically 
Occidental that the issue is not yet a vital one for 
you. You do not have to search for concepts and 
definitions in this regard. The same would be 
true of the Chinese who are so extremely Oriental 
— who are so near the South Pole, so to speak — 
as to find thinking about the matter unnecessary. 

274 



HUNGARY 

They take their Orientalism as a matter of course, 
as do you your Occidentalism. 

" But we of Hungary who are on the geographi- 
cal frontier of Occidentalism, who are, in these 
present centuries, Occidentalism's contenders in 
the everlasting battle between East and West, 
and who find ourselves at death-grips with Russia, 
the present-day aggressive representative of Ori- 
entalism, we, I say, have need to consider such 
matters and to find concepts upon which to build. 

"Thus I, as a Hungarian, have my definitions, 
my lines of demarcation between the two. My 
definitions of Occidentalism are four in number. 
Any nation which fails in one or more of them is 
on the Oriental side of the line. The four items 
are: 

"(i) The distinction between spiritual and tern- 
poral power — the mutual independence of Religion 
and Government. The form of religion or the 
form of government does not and cannot decide 
the question. Thus in Russia the Greek Christian 
Church is Oriental because it makes itself one 
with the State and is used by the State as a club 
to keep the subjects of the State in political 
subjugation. 

275 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

"(2) The recognition of the equal value of 
woman and man. Occidentalism feels that 
woman and man are different but does not feel 
that man is superior to woman. Discussions of 
the differences between man and woman some- 
times occur in Occidental countries as was the 
case in the late disputes in England as to woman's 
fitness for politics. There was no implication that 
man was an animal superior to woman. In 
Occidentalism woman and man are considered 
equal before the law and in the eyes of God, while 
in Orientalism women are often little better than 
slaves and in some eastern religions are not 
supposed after death to go to heaven. 

"(3) The recognition of the rights of the indi- 
vidual. All individuals are considered equal before 
the law. The individual is not a means to some 
end — he is an end in himself. This is laid down 
in its spiritual aspect in Christianity and in every 
form of Christianity. The difference consists in 
this: that in Occidental Christianity it acted as a 
germ — as the principle of an evolution which led 
through a painful ascension of numberless steps 
to the idea of juridical and social equality. In 
Oriental Christianity the germ remained secluded 

276 



HUNGARY 

in the spiritual sphere, without taking effect in 
the secular order. 

11 (4) The recognition of the dignity oj labor. In 
Occidentalism there is none of the feeling that 
to labor is unworthy; there is none of the feeling 
that to labor is the part of slaves and lower 
creatures. Christ was a carpenter and the son of 
a carpenter; he chose his disciples from amongst 
fishermen and laborers and laid down the rule 
that labor enhances the dignity of man. 

" These four items contain the elements of all 
progress and that is why Occidentalism alone is 
really progressive. Whatever progress is achieved 
by Orientals consists in adopting certain technical 
results of Occidental evolution. This does not 
mean that Oriental nations cannot be strong and 
powerful, for many of them have at times been 
powerful. While they are powerful, their policy 
is necessarily one of aggression, because their 
energy is not able to assert itself in internal pro- 
gress and must, therefore, find an outlet in foreign 
aggression. Note Russia. In history you will 
find that the cessation of aggressiveness in an 
Oriental nation has always meant either the be- 
ginning of decay or, as was the case of Hungari- 

277 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

ans in the nth century, of an evolution toward 
Occidentalism. In the nth century the Hun- 
garians were Oriental — now they are Occidental. 
That may follow in Russia too if she is defeated in 
the present war. Paradoxical as the statement 
seems, defeat contains brighter prospects for her 
than victory. For nations at large the victory of 
Russia would mean the advance of the inferior 
Eastern type of civilization at the expense of the 
superior Western one, a calamity not to be con- 
sidered without shuddering. * 

He continued: "Turkey is no longer an aggres- 
sive representative of Orientalism. She is even 
trying under the 'Young Turks' to become Occi- 
dental. Her 'Young Turks' are laboring for 
results which would include all my four defini- 
tions of Occidentalism. Her participation in the 
present war does not fall under the head of East 
versus West, but is inspired simply by considera- 
tion for her own safety as an Asiatic power and as 
the guardian of Constantinople. In a general sort 
of way, there is no formula that covers the whole 
ground of all the phenomena of any great action. 
There is always an intersection of motives. As 
between Russia and Austria-Hungary, the pre- 

278 



HUNGARY 

sent war is a struggle of the East in its Russian 
form against the West, but two other forces are 
at work which, although they do not concern us 
in the least, combine with this one. These are 
the Anglo-German trade rivalry and the Franco- 
German race antipathy." 

Since I have been in the countries of the Dual 
Alliance I have been anxious to secure a clear and 
reasonable declaration of the motives which ac- 
tuate the leading men in the nations comprising 
it. It was not possible to obtain such an explana- 
tion in Germany, because people either frankly 
admitted that Germany's purpose was to become 
through military aggression the dominant power 
of the world, or they flew into such a rage at the 
mere question that nothing they said was either 
reasonable or consecutive. Even the carefully 
prepared literature of the Imperial Foreign Office 
failed to impress me as logical or sincere. It was, 
therefore, a pleasure to obtain from the Count 
a statement of what may be called the Hungarian 
point of view. 

Somewhat later in the day I asked the Count 

what his answer was to the statement so often 

repeated by the Allies, that the sovereigns of the 

279 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

Dual Alliance forced war upon their people. He 
replied: 

"The German, Austrian, and Hungarian people 
were not driven into the war by their sovereigns, 
and could not have been so driven. They approve 
the war because they realize its necessity as 
a defense. They wished to avoid it as did 
their sovereigns. They were all compelled to 
accept it as the only means of defense against 
an aggression cynically planned and carefully 
prepared." 

Monday, January nth. I had intended to leave 
on an early train this morning, but when I broached 
the subject the Count would not permit it and 
insisted that I stay until tomorrow afternoon, 
when he is called to Budapest by government 
duties. 

Tuesday, January 12th. After breakfast it 
snowed a few minutes. A little later it commenced 
to snow in earnest, — great, fat, lazy flakes falling 
out of a leaden sky. From one of the castle 
windows the Count and I watched them against the 
background of some fir trees in the garden below. 

280 



HUNGARY 

"That is good," said Count Apponyi ; "That will 
be good for my wheat-fields just sprouting. It 
will cover them and keep them warm. I have now 
long been hoping for the snow, which is overdue. " 
Some moments later I said, "The falling snow is for 
me one of the most beautiful motions in nature." 
He replied: "To me falling snow always suggests 
Patience. A flake of snow? Ce n'est rienl 
(with a gesture). But it falls and falls, never 
hurrying, each little flake a distinct entity, and at 
last it makes the world beautiful — and it also 
covers my wheat-fields." 

The Hungarian nobles receive an education very 
different from ours. If anything, it leads to greater 
individuality. From infancy they learn four 
languages — their native one, and German, French, 
and English. To this is added an elaborate 
knowledge of courtesy, custom, precedence, and 
manners which is taught them from childhood. 
The boys are also trained to ride and shoot. They 
are sent to school between the ages of thirteen 
and seventeen, where they learn Latin very 
thoroughly and get a smattering of other things. 
They almost unconsciously absorb the knowledge 

281 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

of managing the great estates which constitute 

their wealth. They have a taste for reading 

and prefer rather serious literature. With a 

perfect knowledge of Latin, English, German, 

and French, nearly all masters are open to them 

in the original. They miss only a few: Dante, 

Cervantes, and the ancient Greeks, although 

the more scholarly ones like Apponyi know 

Greek. Since they have much leisure, they 

often possess by the time they are thirty an 

extraordinarily interesting amount of knowledge. 

In Hungary everyone from peasants to counts is 

musical. 

We took lunch today in the perfectly splendid 

old castle of the Karolyi Hunyadis at Ivanka. 

The other guests were the Countess Herberstein 

and an Austro-Hungarian General of Division, 

whose name I did not catch. Count Apponyi and 

I drove over together from Eberhard and after 

luncheon took the train from the neighboring 

station of Pozony Ivanka. I was received with the 

most extravagant cordiality by the Hunyadis on 

account of services which I had been able to render 

to members of their family in the course of my 

work at the Embassy in Paris. 

282 



HUNGARY 

The Hunyadi castle was really as fine or finer 
than some of the smaller ones which I visited 
along the Loire last spring, and it was the more 
impressive because it was "alive"— inhabited— 
and furnished with the most magnificent appoint- 
ments. The stair-hall particularly recalled some 
of those splendid old French ones, being in the 
same sort of yellow Caen stone. 

While we were waiting for a train today, Count 
Apponyi informed me quite seriously that Hun- 
gary was not the least feudal, either in theory or 
practice. 

The Hungarians harbor no animosity against 
Britain and France and really deserve the chival- 
rous friendship of these two nations. They are 
the only people in the present conflict who, in the 
heat and excitement of war, have on all occasions 
behaved like good sportsmen. When trains of 
Russian prisoners arrive at Hungarian stations, the 
people manifest no hostility, but greet them with 
kindness and sympathy and offer them food and 
flowers. The populace has not molested alien 
enemies, and their government has not indulged in 
wholesale internments of enemies' subjects. In 
Hungary I found British horse trainers, English 

283 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

tutors, and French governesses going tranquilly 
about their peaceful occupations. English tailors 
advertised their business in the Hungarian news- 
papers, and their clients went to them as readily as 
they would have gone in peace time. French chefs 
and servants were, as a matter of course, retained 
in the employ of noble families, and were treated 
with unvarying consideration and sympathy by 
their Hungarian fellow-servants. This attitude 
has been steadfastly maintained in spite of the 
wholesale imprisonment by the Allies of such Hun- 
garian subjects as were left within their territory 
at the opening of hostilities. Of the nations which 
I have studied Hungary is the only one involved 
in the present conflict which has not stooped to 
reprisal and retaliation. 

It was a curious demonstration of the difference 
in the national temperament of the Teutonic and 
Magyar races to mark how diametrically opposed 
was the manner in which the two peoples regarded 
the efforts of the American Embassy in Paris to 
safeguard their respective subjects. As I, during 
the earlier weeks of the war, had been closely as- 
sociated with these efforts, everyone I met had 
something to sav to me upon the matter. 

284 



HUNGARY 

Throughout Germany there was universal com- 
plaint and criticism of the methods of treating the 
German subjects who, at the beginning of the war, 
had been interned in France. I was constantly- 
obliged to hear accounts of how many people had 
been crowded into one building, how at first only 
straw was provided for bedding, and how scarce 
and poor was the food which was furnished. The 
censure was primarily for the French nation, but 
the comments conveyed no sense of obligation to 
our Embassy staff, who had worked so untiringly 
to alleviate these conditions, which, moreover, 
resulted from no mal-intent on the part of the 
French, but were simply the inevitable conse- 
quences of the sudden oncoming of war. Every 
national resource of the French Republic was de- 
voted to quick mobilization, upon which the fate 
of the nation hung, and until that operation had 
been accomplished, little time or thought could be 
devoted to alien citizens. 

On entering Hungary I braced myself to endure 
the same hostile attitude. To my intense surprise 
I was everywhere welcomed with great cordiality 
and received as a sincere friend and protector of 
the Hungarian people who had been interned in 

285 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

France. The great families of Hungary sent me 
invitations to visit them on their estates, they 
threw open their most exclusive clubs, offered me 
opportunities to view the fighting on the Russian 
front, and treated me like one of themselves. Of 
expressions of appreciation and gratitude there 
was no limit, and they greatly over-emphasized my 
services. Not only were the nobles thus demon- 
stratively grateful, but in nearly every village and 
town to which I went I found inhabitants who 
had returned from internment in France to relate 
how helpful Monsieur Wood at the American Em- 
bassy had been to them. Often I remembered 
neither the individuals nor the incidents they so 
gratefully dwelt upon, but the general atmosphere 
of friendliness thus created was like springtime 
after frost. 

In Germany, even after establishing my identity, 
I have by citizens or German Secret Service men 
been the object of grossly insulting remarks. In 
Hungary no one even asked what was my personal 
bias on the present war, but everyone remembered 
only the services which the Embassy of neutral 
America had in France rendered to any Hungarian 

subject who needed assistance. If the other na- 

286 



HUNGARY 

tions of the Dual Alliance possessed the generosity 
and courtesy of the Hungarians, people outside 
the war would find it easier to be neutral in 
sentiment as well as in deed, 



287 



CHAPTER XII 

A GERMAN PRISON-CAMP 

Vienna, Tuesday, January 12th. Last night and 
today twenty-three long trains of German regular 
troops have passed through the Ivanka station on 
their way east. They were apparently going to 
the Roumanian frontier. A train will hold two bat- 
talions of infantry, two thousand men, or a battery 
of artillery with full equipment. These trains 
would, therefore, represent something like thirty 
thousand men, and more were all the time coming. 
My car, in which I was en route from Budapest 
to Vienna, stopped at one station just opposite one 
of these military trains, which I thus had time to 
study. It contained a battery of German artillery 
and was a very long one, consisting of $at cars, 
freight cars, and one or more passenger coaches 
for the officers. The guns of the battery, with all 
the limbers and caissons, were placed on flat-cars, 
while some of the freight cars were used for equip* 

288 



A GERMAN PRISON-CAMP 

ment and ammunition and others for the soldiers. 
The doors of these latter were open and were 
boarded up to a height of eighteen inches to keep 
floor draughts off the men lying within. The 
cars were filled with clean straw, sprigs of which 
trailed out of the doorways. The soldiers, like 
all German soldiers that I have seen, were fat, 
healthy, happy, and cheerful, singing, waving 
hands and handkerchiefs to the responsive crowds 
on the platforms, and laughing and joking. They 
looked for all the world like big puppies hanging 
out of a box filled with straw. They were young 
men of Germany's best troops and had that certain 
bearing of confidence and efficiency which marks 
veterans. Their faces, albeit smooth and healthy, 
were not the faces of boys, although some of them 
were still boys in years. 

The guns and caissons at the first uncritical 
glance looked like junk, but a second look revealed 
the error. Their metal work was battered and 
their paint chipped off, but the wheels and running 
gear and the long gray barrels were clean and spick 
and span. 

The efficiency, rapidity of fire, and elasticity of 

cannon have so improved in the past decade that 

289 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

a battery of four guns now requires one hundred 
and eighty men, six or seven officers, and two hun- 
dred horses to manage it. What with mathemati- 
cal instruments to direct fire, instrument wagons, 
field forges, spare parts, and twelve or sixteen 
caissons, every horse and man belonging to the 
battery is necessary when a stiff action is going on. 
The guns shoot six thousand yards and the four 
can between them fire eighty shots a minute. 
Each of the shells weighs about eighteen pounds, 
costs up to twenty dollars to manufacture, and is 
freighted with almost unbelievable possibilities of 
death and destruction. When using shrapnel a 
single battery can during any sixty seconds fire 
thirty-five thousand well-directed bullets against 
advancing infantry. A battalion of infantry in 
charging will average about two hundred yards a 
minute — and during that minute a single battery 
can fire against it thirty-five bullets for every man 
in the battalion. 

The field guns of all nations shoot approximately 
the same shell, three inches in diameter. These 
guns are so small and light in appearance that it 
is difficult to realize their power until one has seen 
its effects. Their barrels are perhaps six feet long 

290 



A GERMAN PRISON-CAMP 

and from five to seven inches in exterior diameter. 
A light but very complicated running-gear sup- 
ports them. This rests upon two wagon- wheels 
quite ordinary in appearance. The whole is 
painted smoke-gray and looks quite toylike and 
harmless. 



I had lunch with Mr. Penfield today at his 
official residence and it was an extremely interest- 
ing event. The building is said to be the finest 
ambassadorial residence in the world of any 
nationality. I can easily believe it. In the very 
heart of Vienna the house has behind it a garden 
of some two acres with many fine hothouses. 
Seven gardeners are required. On the other side, 
the Embassy faces on a large public garden and 
thus every one of the sixty big windows which 
the mansion possesses faces on one garden or the 
other. The house is adorned with Meissoniers, 
Van Dykes, Chinese rugs, and other things of a 
like value. The house was shown to me from top 
to bottom by Mr. Penfield. 



At present there is great excitement in Vienna 
291 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

over the fall of Count Berchtold, the Prime Min- 
ister, announced publicly this morning. 

I am to leave for Berlin, London, and Paris, and 
then home as soon as possible. 

Vienna, Friday, January 15th. I am doing my 
best to see Vienna so thoroughly in an architectural 
and artistic way that I shall not find it necessary 
to return for purposes of study. 

1. 

At the Jockey Club last night I played bridge 
with Mr. O'Shaughnessy, Attache Cardeza, and 
His Serene Highness, Prince Lichtenstein, the 
fortunate possessor of the Lichtenstein Galleries 
in Vienna. I am to visit his collection on Sunday 
morning with the Countess Colloredo. 

Captain Briggs is at the front with Colonel 
Biddle but is expected to return soon and I am 
awaiting his arrival before departing for Berlin. 

Sunday, January 17th. I suppose it is useless 
to say that all the reports in the Allied press 
about revolutions, despair, and cholera in Austria- 
Hungary are absolutely false. 

292 



A GERMAN PRISON-CAMP 

Monday, January 18th. I now plan to leave 
for Berlin on Wednesday and hope, unless I strike 
something of very great importance in Belgium, 
to reach London about January 31st. 

Wednesday, January 20th. A party of neutral 
diplomats who last week went by train into the 
country for a picnic were arrested on their return 
to the railroad station at Vienna, beaten up, and 
insulted by police and soldiers in spite of their 
identification papers. The affair went to such 
lengths that several of the diplomats came out of 
the fracas with bruised faces and torn clothes. 
The whole party were detained for nearly an hour 
before they were finally set at liberty. Among 
the distinguished members of the party were: M. 
Chaflord, the Swiss Minister, M. Bekfris, the 
Swedish Minister, M. Lelerche, the Norwegian 
Charge d'Affaires, M. Carpion, the Roumanian 
Charge d'Affaires, MM. Guignous and Segesser, 
Swiss Secretaries. 

Several ladies were with the party, which num- 
bered a dozen in all. The affair was started and 
led by a colonel in the army who resented the 
fact that the diplomats were conversing in French, 

293 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

a language they were forced to employ since they 
were of many different nationalities. The crowd 
at the railroad station where the " incident* ' took 
place was not hostile and did nothing except stand 
by in idle curiosity. Up to the present time the 
only action taken by the Austrian Government 
has been to send regrets, not apologies, to the 
various diplomats. The colonel who was respon- 
sible for the assault offered his resignation, which 
was promptly refused. I know of no such dis- 
graceful incident ever having taken place in 
France or Great Britain. 

Captain Briggs returned from the front this 
morning. 

Berlin, Thursday, January 21st. I arrived in 
Berlin last night after an uneventful journey. I 
went to the theatre this evening with Charles 
Russell. We walked around through the lobby 
during the intermission and among other things 
saw a young man, perhaps nineteen, very blond, 
with the nicest, simplest, most straightforward 
face, the face of a quiet, retiring boy, who would 
grow up into a thinking man. He was with his 

294 



A GERMAN PRISON-CAMP 

mother. He was in civilian clothes, but in his 
lapel he wore the broad ribbon — black with two 
white bars — of the Iron Cross. Somewhere, some- 
time in these recent months, this quiet lad had 
performed coolly some feat of great personal valor. 
The look of unsuppressible pride upon his mothers 
face, as she walked on his arm, was wonderful to 
behold. 

Sunday, January 24th. I am to leave early 
Wednesday morning for London or The Hague, 
I do not yet know which. From either one it 
is probable that I shall be sent to Brussels. 

Tuesday, January 26th. I visited the prison 
camp at Doberitz today. In a military auto- 
mobile I was conducted there with much cere- 
mony by Captain Freiherr von G , Iron Cross 

and Red Eagle, of the Imperial Guard. He is 
on leave convalescing from a wound in the knee 
which he received at Ypres. I was expressly 
told that I might describe what I saw and repeat 
what I heard as many times and as much in detail 
as I chose, so that I have no hesitation in giving 
my impressions without reserve, even though it 

295 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

was by courtesy of the German Government that 
I made the trip. 

The camp was distant one hour's fast run from 
Berlin and was situated on a flat plain which had 
very little natural or artificial drainage. The cold 
mud was everywhere from three to four inches deep. 
On this plain and closely surrounded by heavy 
barbed-wire entanglements were some seventy 
or eighty rude wooden sheds arranged in four 
rows with a broad avenue down the center. Here 
were kept some nine thousand prisoners of war, of 
whom four thousand were British and four thou- 
sand Russian. By careful and repeated pacing I 
estimated that the sheds were about one hundred 
by thirty feet. Each one had six unopenable 
windows on a side. In each such house were 
quartered one hundred and twenty -five men. 
When certain partitioned areas have been sub- 
tracted this means a space of about six by three 
feet per man. Each house was heated by one 
stove and was very hot and stuffy, being, except 
for the door, hermetically sealed. 

None of the prisoners had overcoats, personal 
belongings, or blankets. They slept on straw 
ticks measuring approximately seven feet by 

296 



A GERMAN PRISON-CAMP 

thirty inches. That they all suffered from lice 
and other vermin was perfectly evident. The 
whole camp was closely surrounded by barbed 
wire, and the main avenue was commanded by 
three field-guns placed outside at one end in a 
little barbed- wire fort. The whole was apparently 
under the charge of a Captain of Landsturm and 
the guards were men of the Landsturm. The 
prisoners looked thin, peaked, unhappy and sickly, 
and many had boils. They have absolutely noth- 
ing to do — they exist. They are fed three times 
a day — 6 a.m., 12 noon, and 4 p.m. For "lunch" 
and "dinner" and also Sunday breakfast, they 
receive about one pint of a thick soup. I tasted 
some of this and thought it was concocted chiefly 
of barley and potatoes. I was told that there 
was meat in it but could find no evidence of any. 
For breakfast the prisoners receive black bread 
with a slice of either cheese or sausage and either 
tea or coffee. The diet is evidently insufficient. 
I should say that it was calculated with German 
accuracy to just keep body and soul together. I 
was taken through many of the houses and al- 
though no actual prohibition to talk was given it 

was virtually impossible to speak with the pris- 

297 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

oners, as I was always hurriedly rushed along 
from one place to another. In order to make a 
pretence of conversation, one of the two captains 
who escorted me would sometimes say to a pris- 
oner, "What nationality are you?" "Scotch, 
sir." "What regiment?" "Argyle-Highlanders, 
sir." "Ah, so!" and we would then hurry along 
again. We were in the camp an hour and a half, 
and during that time I succeeded in asking three 
short well-chosen questions of intelligent-looking 
British non-commissioned officers. 

First question: "Do you get enough to eat?" 

Answer : ' ' My Gawd, no ! " 

Second question: "How do present conditions 

compare with the past?" 
Answer: "Wonderfully improved, sir, 

in comparison." 
Third question: "How often do you write 

home?" 
Answer: "One letter every two 

months, but they say they 

are going to improve that." 

I saw the four o'clock feeding. It reminded 

me of nothing except seeing animals fed at the 

298 



A GERMAN PRISON-CAMP 

Zoo. In the kitchen I saw the British soldiers 
receive their afternoon meal. A line of five great 
cauldrons of hot soup extended down the room, 
each one being about four feet high and four feet 
in diameter. The prisoners entered through a 
vestibule at one end of the building, where they 
passed between two German sentinels to whom 
each delivered up a metal check before being 
allowed to pass inside. There is a roll-call in the 
sheds before every meal and each man is then 
handed a check which later entitles him to receive 
his ration. Each prisoner possesses and keeps 
constantly with him one iron bowl and one large 
spoon. When they are permitted to enter the 
kitchen the prisoners rush to whatever cauldron 
is least busy. There a cook, armed with a long- 
handled measure holding about a pint, ladles out 
one measureful of soup into each man's bowl and 
this constitutes the entire repast. The Captain 
of Landsturm in explaining to me about the metal 
checks said indignantly, "Why, if we did not 
have this system of checks, they would all come 
back three and four times!" by which remark he 
showed the typical German lack of anything 
approaching tact or diplomacy. 

299 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ATTACHE 

There were some British sailors and numerous 
marines among the prisoners. These, according 
to the Germans, came from Antwerp. They had 
reached that city just as the Germans entered and 
had been captured without ever having left their 
train. They were sent on in the same train to 
German prisons and their total war experience 
consisted in one continued non-change journey 
from Ostend to the Doberitz prison-camp. The 
Germans said that there was at times ill feeling 
between English and Russians. 

The method of punishment in the camp was 
called " tying up" for one or two hours. I was 
unable to get details but gathered that this con- 
sisted in suspension by some part of the hands. 
This, however, may have been a wrong conclusion. 
I was told that the men received letters from home, 
about fifty a day arriving at the camp, and are 
also allowed to receive money. Yesterday was a 
record day, a big mail arriving with some 7000 
marks. They may spend the money at the camp 
store, which I examined; tobacco, sausages, and 
insecticide seemed to be the chief articles in stock. 

A bath-house has recently been provided in 

which it is possible to take cold showers. The 

300 



A GERMAN PRISON-CAMP 

English shave with potato knives borrowed from 
the kitchen. The men wash in the open, appar- 
ently in the same bowls from which they eat. 
Water is very sparingly served out to them. 

The two German officers who acted as my guides 
tried to impress upon me that the camp was a 
model one and that everything was done for the 
prisoners which they had a right to expect. It 
seemed to me very much less desirable than the 
prison for French soldiers which I had previously 
inspected at Zossen. Some specific things which 
the French possessed and the British lacked were 
overcoats, bunks, ample food, work, recreation, 
blankets, and the opportunity for exercise, and 
it should be remembered in extenuation of Ger- 
man prison camps in general — if extenuation is 
deemed necessary — that besides interned civil- 
ians, Germany has now nearly seven hundred 
thousand prisoners of war to house and feed. 

February 14th. After brief visits to Holland, 
France, and England I last night boarded the 
steamship Lusitania at Liverpool and sailed for 
that land of skyscrapers, electric signs, and tele- 
phones — the land which has been called " opulent, 
aggressive, and unprepared." 

301 



CONCLUSION 

It would be a sin of omission for me to neglect 
to sound again that oft-repeated warning against 
the dangers of military unpreparedness, which has 
been so vainly sounded since the birth of our 
nation by every American, great or small, who 
has known or seen anything of actual war con- 
ditions. 

Is it idle to hope that the warnings to be deduced 
from the current histories of other nations will be 
heeded by a nation which has ever disregarded the 
lessons of its own history? 



302 



APPENDIX 

MISCELLANEOUS MILITARY OBSERVATIONS MADE BY 

THE AUTHOR DURING THE SEVEN MONTHS 

RECORDED IN THIS BOOK 

The best maps with which to follow and study the 
war in France, Flanders, and Belgium are those of the 
French Automobile Club, called "Cartes Routieres 
pour Automobiles," published by A. Taride, 18 
Boulevard Saint-Denis, Paris. The war has been 
largely fought and directed by the use of these maps, 
which are on the scale prescribed by the French 
General Staff — about three and one-half miles to the 
inch. They show every road and lane, every town 
and village in France. The war areas are contained 
in numbers i, ibis, 2, 3, 6, and 7. Those most re- 
ferred to in this book are 3 and 7. 

CASUALTIES 

The total losses of the various belligerents in killed, 
wounded, and captured for the first six months of the 
war, from August 1st to February 1st, are as follows: 

303 



APPENDIX 

British 140,000 

French 1,450,000 

Russians 2,050,000 

Austro-Hungarians 950,000 

Germans 1,500,000 

The approximate ratio of deaths to total casualties 
is as follows: 

German, 2 deaths to 9 casualties. 
French, 2 deaths to 7 casualties. 

(The large proportion of French deaths was due: 
First, to the fact that in the early part of the war 
most actions were German victories, and the Ger- 
mans could not care for French wounded as well as 
they did for their own ; 

Secondly to lack of sanitary skill on the part of the 
French in taking care of their wounded.) 

Austrian, 2 deaths to 7 casualties. 
British, 2 deaths to 11 casualties. 

(The low rate of mortality among the British is due 
to the great number of motor ambulances which 
they possess, to the smallness of their army, to the ef- 
ficiency with which they care for their wounded, and 
to the short distance which separates their forces 
from their home country.) 



304 





APPENDIX 






The numbers of prisoners held on 


February 


ist: 


In Germany: 


British 
Belgian 
Russian 
French 






18,000 

39,000 

350,000 

245,000 


In Austria: 


Russian 






250,000 


In England: 


German 






15,000 


In France: 


German, 


approximately 


50,000 



MEDICAL CORPS 

The battle practice in the French army in handling 
wounded is as follows: 

When a man is wounded he is carried to a dressing 
station in some partly protected neighborhood within 
the battle area. He is generally taken there by the 
stretcher-bearers attached to his company. After 
field dressing, he is removed to a field hospital one to 
three miles toward the rear. The means of transporta- 
tion are varied, and made to suit the particular battle 
conditions, the principal means being stretcher-bearers, 
motor ambulances, and horse ambulances. In case of 
heavy casualties, all the men who can possibly stagger 
are obliged to go to the rear by themselves and are 
sent in small parties so that they may assist one 
another en route. 

The field hospitals are nearly always established 
20 3°5 



APPENDIX 

in village churches with overflow into neighboring 
houses in case of heavy casualties. All the furniture 
is removed from the church and the floor is covered 
thick with straw, upon which the wounded are laid 
out in long rows. The altar is made the pharmacist's 
headquarters, the vestry is converted into an operating 
room, and a Red Cross flag is hung from the tower or 
steeple. These field hospitals are generally well 
within the zone of artillery fire, and are frequently 
struck by shells. 

The men are evacuated from the field hospital to a 
base hospital in motor ambulances or by a combina- 
tion of motor ambulances and railway trains. Theo- 
retically, this should be done within a day or two with 
all cases except the very gravest. In practice, the 
men frequently lie in field hospitals for weeks before 
the opportunity of evacuation is found. The base 
hospitals are in cities or large towns, and serve as 
clearing-houses. They are well out of the military- 
zone, being from five to fifteen miles behind the zone 
of artillery fire. I will give a definite example. In 
October, I saw the front at Albert. There were 
dressing stations just behind the battle-line. There 
was a field hospital at Henencourt. From Henen- 
court the wounded were evacuated upon Amiens, 
which contained the base hospitals for a front extend- 
ing from a point north of Sus St. Leger to the neigh- 

306 



APPENDIX 

borhood of Guerbigny. Here the railway station had 
been converted into a receiving center to which all the 
wounded were brought for examination and classifica- 
tion. Those who could bear travel were immediately 
placed upon trains and shipped to the south of France. 
There were four other hospitals in Amiens, and all 
cases considered too grave for transportation to the 
south were sent to one of these. They were divided 
and classified so that cases of a kind were grouped 
together, each hospital and the various floors of each 
hospital having a different class of patient. Some of 
the classifications were: head cases, amputation cases, 
gangrene cases, cases in which the patient could not 
refrain from screaming, either because of delirium or 
for other reasons. It is on leaving the base hospital 
that wounded are first classified as to nationality. 

For the railway transportation of the wounded, lug- 
gage vans are used. I estimate the interior length of a 
French luggage- van or freight-car to be about twenty- 
five feet, the doors being placed, as in America, in the 
middle of each side. Wooden racks are built to the 
right and left of the door in the ends of the car. These 
racks are arranged to hold two layers of three stretch- 
ers each, so that each end of the freight car contains 
six lying cases. The men who are able to sit or 
stand and the orderlies in charge are placed in the 
aisle between the doors, a space about six feet wide 

307 



APPENDIX 

between the stretcher handles. On their way to the 
south of France these trains stop about every twenty- 
four hours, the first stop being Aubervilliers, a station 
some two miles outside the gates of Paris. Here a 
large storage warehouse has been converted into a 
hospital. Food and water are distributed to the train 
on its arrival, the dead taken out, and the delirious or 
very grave cases are removed to the Paris hospitals. 
The others are allowed twelve hours* rest before 
continuing on the next stage of their journey. 

The trains are usually made up of from 30 to 50 
vans, and each train carries from 500 to 800 wounded. 
No particular effort seems to be made to isolate 
gangrene cases from the others, and the wounded 
invariably remain in the uniforms in which they 
fought until they reach the home hospital in the south 
of France. Their dressings, until they reach these 
home hospitals, are superficial ones. I have seen 
numerous cases with grave wounds, such as shattered 
thighs, which have remained in this condition for 
four and five weeks before finally being undressed and 
washed at the home hospital. 

The whole system of handling the wounded seems 
to be theoretically well conceived. In practice among 
the French it worked thus poorly during the early 
months of the war. The wounded suffered from lack 
of food, water, attention, and bathing, and the re- 

308 



APPENDIX 

suiting number of mortalities and amputations was ex- 
ceedingly high. The effect on the morale of those who re- 
covered is very serious, and is in singular contrast to the 
eagerness to return to the front often shown by British 
and German convalescents. The care given to the 
wounded by these two nations is very excellent indeed. 
The same stretcher is used throughout the French 
army, and its universal use is compulsory on all 
organizations, whether volunteer or regular. It is not 
unusual for a grave case to be picked up on the battle- 
field and placed upon a stretcher and to travel on it 
all the way to the south of France without once being 
removed. The company stretcher-bearers turn him 
over to the dressing station with the stretcher upon 
which they have borne him. Since these stretchers 
are identical in size and construction they fit all am- 
bulances and all railway equipments. They may be 
said to be current, like money, and whenever one 
organization turns over a grave case to the succeed- 
ing organization, the stretcher goes with the case, 
and an empty one is received in return. The num- 
ber at any one point is thus maintained at a con- 
stant figure, and there is a general tendency for 
battered and infected stretchers to gravitate to- 
ward the south of France, and for new stretchers 
to gravitate toward the front. 



309 



APPENDIX 

There has been much typhoid in the armies in 
France, and it is on the increase. The wounded men 
develop it more often than any other class. Inocula- 
tion against typhoid is theoretically compulsory in 
the French army. I have no personal knowledge as to 
the thoroughness or effectiveness of inoculation in 
practice. 

Lockjaw seems to develop late. Most of the cases 
occur after the men have reached the south of France. 
The new French anti-lockjaw inoculation of Doctor 
Doyen has produced most remarkable results. I 
have heard, on reliable authority, that with it 80% 
of the cases treated make a complete recovery. 
Three of my personal friends have had lockjaw and 
recovered. This is, in part, due to the fact that in all 
the hospitals the diagnosis is quick and sure, and the 
serum always in stock. The injection is made into the 
spinal cord at the small of the back. The patient is 
kept on his back on a slightly sloping table, his feet 
being at the higher end, while his head is allowed to 
hang unsupported over the end of the table. 

A considerable proportion of the French and British 
troops in France, the Russian, Austrian, and Hun- 
garian troops in the eastern fields, and the prisoners in 
Germany suffer from lice. Fleas seem to be a com- 
parative rarity in the zones of operation. 



310 



APPENDIX 

The physique and condition of the French troops 
have greatly improved since the beginning of the war. 
War conditions seem to have caused a marked change. 
Many of the men have gained twenty and even thirty 
pounds, and the younger men have grown inches in 
height. 

The French have well-defined regulations in the 
matter of sanitation, but these rules are not generally 
well-observed or strictly enforced. In the French 
trenches, however, where discipline is best, this matter 
is very well regulated. The Germans are particularly 
orderly in this regard. I have never observed that 
the French mark wells or water supplies in any 
manner. 

I have no observations to offer on the subject of 
cremation of refuse, but have seen several attempts at 
cremation of bodies in the French army, all of which 
were glaring failures. 

AEROPLANES 

The German aeroplanes are generally conceded to 
be the most effective in the war, and the Germans seem 
to possess more of them than any other nation. None 
of their machines are slow and their fastest ones are 
faster than any in the other armies. Aeroplanes have 
been singularly ineffective in attacking as their shoot- 

3ii 



APPENDIX 

ing is extremely bad. They usually miss their target 
by at least two hundred yards, and, so far as my per- 
sonal knowledge goes, the only damage that they have 
ever done has been when they have had a whole city 
to shoot at. Something like forty bombs were thrown 
on Paris while I was in that city, and although some 
thirty or forty non-combatants were killed or wounded, 
a target of any military importance was hit on only 
one occasion, when a bomb was dropped through the 
roof of the Gare St. Lazare. In the field, the principal 
targets aimed at by the aeroplanes are supply and 
ammunition convoys. The method is for the aero- 
plane to fly above the road and to drop a bomb as 
it passes over the convoy. It then makes a circle and 
repeats the operation. I know personally of some 
fifty bombs thus dropped, not one of which struck 
anywhere near the target. The effect of the bombs is 
of small consequence and damage is seldom done 
except to the people who happen to be standing in the 
immediate neighborhood. 

The crater of the bombs thrown by German aero- 
planes, when striking macadam or similar surfaces, is 
about fifteen inches in diameter and four inches deep. 
I have seen three such craters. The shrapnel bullets 
from the exploding bombs fly with a killing force to a 
distance of about fifty yards, and at the latter range 
the lowest bullets fly at a height of about twelve or 

312 



APPENDIX 

fifteen feet. These bombs weigh about fourteen 
pounds. 

Aeroplanes have proved to be almost invulnerable 
in war. They are extremely difficult to hit, because 
one must calculate for three dimensions and for the 
speed of the aeroplane; when hit they seldom suffer 
serious damage. I know of a case where first and last 
nearly 200 bullets passed through a machine without 
its ever being put out of action. Indeed, it seems 
impossible to bring down an aeroplane except by a 
freak shot. The gasoline tank is high and narrow and 
is protected by a thin metal plate underneath, while 
struts and steering wires are usually double. Wound- 
ing the aviator does not usually bring down a machine, 
because he is sitting and is strapped in, and on calm 
days needs to employ only a slight muscular effort to 
steer. Moreover, there are usually two officers in an 
aeroplane and the systems of double control enable the 
aeroplane to return to its base even if one of them is 
killed outright. 

Anti-aircraft guns are not greatly feared by aviators, 
and they consider it merely an extraordinary piece 
of bad luck to be hit by one. The aviators fear most 
of all the fire of large bodies of infantry, and in flying 
over a regiment at an altitude of 1000 yards they real- 
ize that they run serious risk of being brought down. 

Rifle bullets are effective against aeroplanes up to 
313 



APPENDIX 

a height of about 5000 feet. Observers fly just above 
this altitude, at about 5500 feet, since they wish to 
fly as low as possible and yet be reasonably safe. 
Aviators have told me that this height is so well 
recognized that they nearly always encounter other 
observers in the same plane. 

Aeroplanes, flying at a height of 5500 feet, can ob- 
serve the movement or presence of large bodies of 
troops and the flashes of artillery. They cannot 
observe very much else at that height. They seem 
to be able to descend suddenly for a short time to a 
very low altitude when it is necessary and, in a large 
percentage of cases, to escape. British aeroplanes 
have made reconnoissances at an altitude of only 
one hundred yards. 

Aeroplanes have made surprises in war nearly 
impossible, since in modern warfare it would be neces- 
sary to shift at least a division to produce any effect, 
and the movement of such a number of men would 
certainly be visible to aeroplanes during the daytime. 
If such a movement were performed at night, the 
presence of the division in a new spot would almost 
certainly be detected by the aeroplanes in the morn- 
ing. The possession of a large and efficient aeroplane 
corps reduces the surprises of war very nearly to 
nil, and proportionately increases the importance of 
preparedness and of tactics. 

3H 



APPENDIX 

The German aviators (and in fact all German 
observers, such as infantry and cavalry patrols) make 
it a principle to avoid, if possible, any combat; this 
is, of course, interpreted as cowardice by the Allies, 
who seem eager for a fight on any terms. There is a 
distinct reluctance among aviators for engaging in 
aerial duels. As one French aviator said to me: 
"You are both killed and that does no one any good. " 
This reluctance is fairly universal, except with British 
flyers. 

The German aeroplanes signal their observations 
by means of a code expressed in smoke balls. I never 
was able to obtain any theory as to how this code 
works. This method of communication seems to be 
very effective, as German shells sometimes arrive with 
singular accuracy and immediateness. It is commonly 
reported that Germans also signal with a suspended 
disc, but I have no personal knowledge of this system. 
The French had no definite means of signaling from 
the air in the early months of the war, and I believe 
this is still the case. They make their observation and 
return to their base to report, usually taking notes 
while aloft on maps and in note-books. I have no 
personal knowledge of the British methods. The 
Austrian system of signaling is by means of evolutions 
of the aeroplanes themselves. When they observe 
a target they fly over it, and when directly above 

315 



APPENDIX 

make a sudden dip. They are observed during their 
evolutions with instruments, so that the exact angle 
and hypothenuse at the moment of this dip is known. 
They then make a circuit and come up from the rear 
and again fly over the objective. As they reach a 
point where they can see the target or objective their 
artillery opens fire and is corrected by the graphic 
evolutions of the aeroplane. If the shells drop too 
far to the left, the aeroplane turns to the right and the 
distance in profile that it travels before straightening 
out is the correction. They say, "Shoot short" by 
dipping and " Shoot farther" by rising. 

I have no knowledge of aeroplanes being used at 
night, although they sometimes return from daylight 
operations after night has fallen and make their 
landing with the assistance of beacons. It is com- 
monly reported both by Germans and French that 
the steel darts used by the French aviators are the 
most effective offensive weapon so far used by aero- 
planes. I have no personal knowledge on this subject. 
I have been several times informed upon reliable 
authority that the French have no particular in- 
struments of precision for use in the dropping of 
bombs. 

At the commencement of hostilities the French 
aviators feared their own armies much more than they 
did the Germans, because the French had neglected to 

316 



APPENDIX 

familiarize their troops with the designs of hostile 
aircraft. 

It was proved to be nearly impossible to force a 
fight with your enemy's aeroplane, even if he is far 
within your own territory. If your own aeroplanes 
are on the ground it takes them entirely too long to 
get to his altitude, and if he wishes to stay in the same 
neighborhood he himself keeps going higher as your 
aeroplanes mount toward him. There seems to be no 
difficulty encountered in avoiding aeroplanes already in 
the air, since they are usually visible at great distances. 

Anti-aircraft guns are generally mounted on auto- 
mobile trucks, and are usually of small calibre. I have 
never seen any German aeroplanes other than mono- 
planes; these I have seen on ten or more occasions. 

I saw no aeroplanes which carried other arms than 
rifles and automatic pistols. 

In practice I have nowhere observed machine-guns 
mounted on aeroplanes, although they are much 
advertised and talked about. 

I have frequently heard, upon what I consider 
reliable authority, that the Germans use captive 
balloons for observations. 

ARTILLERY 

I have at all times been tremendously impressed 
with the dominant importance in this war of artillery. 

317 



APPENDIX 

My personal observations lead me to estimate that 
the percentage of casualties from artillery wounds 
has been nearly 50% of the total. 

There are very distinct differences in the methods 
of the French and German field artilleries. The 
French field artillery is always used in indirect fire 
and the positions are usually a long distance behind 
the infantry — from fifteen to twenty-five hundred 
yards. The emplacements are often in deep wooded 
valleys. Too close proximity to the infantry is 
avoided. 

In contrast to this, the German field artillery is 
nearly always very close to the infantry and is fre- 
quently in position for direct fire. In the most typ- 
ical German arrangement the infantry trenches are 
on the front face of a hill along the "military crest" 
with the artillery two or three hundred yards behind 
over the natural crest. One often sees German field 
guns in such a position that it is difficult to say 
whether they are in "direct" or "indirect" fire. 

In battles where there are no rapid retreats and 
rapid advances it seems to be the custom for batteries 
to be silent for one or two days while the battery 
commander, by means of observers, aeroplanes, and 
spies, endeavors to locate an objective. The point to 
be made is that the main forces of artillery do not 
seem to fire very continuously. Oftentimes in the 

318 



APPENDIX 

middle of a very tense battle where heavy forces are 
opposed to each other there will be periods of half an 
hour or even longer when no firing whatsoever is to 
be heard. The importance of observers has become 
tremendous. On some occasions it seems as though 
the main object of an army were to get a single man 
into a location from which he can accurately observe 
the enemy's position, and as if until this is accom- 
plished the whole battle is at a standstill. Both sides 
try continuously in all sorts of original ways to get 
information. The German tendency is toward the 
use of spies, while the French more often employ 
daring volunteer observers who sacrifice their lives 
in order successfully to direct fire for even five or ten 
minutes. Aeroplanes are used for the same purpose 
by all nations, but with less and less success as the 
war progresses, because hostile infantry and artillery 
are better and better hidden. It has now become almost 
impossible for an aeroplane to locate hostile artillery 
except by the flashes. Battery positions are either 
placed in forests, or artificial woods are built around 
them. It is almost axiomatic that artillery shall give 
no signs of life while an enemy's aeroplane is above, 
and as the result of this, one well-recognized method of 
temporarily silencing an enemy's battery is to keep an 
aeroplane flying over its neighborhood. Volunteer 
observers are frequently disguised and sent forward 

319 



APPENDIX 

to hunt for a place from which they can observe the 
hostile trenches of artillery and thus direct and correct 
the fire of their own batteries. Observers who thus 
volunteer to go forward are virtually always decor- 
ated and made officers, if, by some fortunate chance, 
they both succeed and survive. The French artillery 
officers take advantage of every "assist" ; for instance, 
I saw a case where a shell made a groove on the 
reverse side of a hill and glanced off. The shell 
exploded, but its fuse was recovered by the French, 
the setting of the fuse determined, and by means of 
this and the direction of the groove made in the hiE 
the German battery was located. The French re- 
ported that they had destroyed the battery. One of 
their aeroplanes was sent up before firing was begun 
and later observed the battery's efforts to escape. 

The French batteries are usually so far behind the 
infantry that when they have come under heavy artil- 
lery fire there is no danger of capture. The custom 
with the French seems to be, in a case like this, for 
the personnel to run and take cover during the bom- 
bardment. I saw this happen twice, and I learned of 
numerous other cases. Cover underground is con- 
structed for all the personnel of the batteries. One 
enters these subterranean quarters through entrances 
which look very much like enlarged woodchuck 
holes. With no artillery of any nationality did I see 

320 



APPENDIX 

any gun entrenchment other than a slight mound of 
earth coming up to the bottom of the shield. All 
guns that I have seen were in a line, except in cases 
where there was some peculiar rising of terrain. I 
have several times seen a "group" together in one 
line, at intervals of about twenty yards. In practice, 
the French tend to extend the intervals to about 
twenty-five yards, while the Germans either decrease 
them to about fifteen yards, or have the guns quite 
isolated, seventy-five or one hundred yards apart. 

Telephones are the only instruments of which I 
have observed the use in the immediate neighborhood 
of French batteries. The battery commander con- 
trols the fire by word of mouth. 

The French 75-mm. gun is the only field- piece which 
under practical field conditions does not "jump." 
This gives a tremendous advantage to the French 
artillery in such duels as frequently take place in 
battles where there is rapid movement. I have been 
on battlefields after action had finished and observed 
positions where two batteries had shot at each other, 
both being in "direct fire" position. The French 
pieces can fire at a rate of twenty-five shots a minute 
and in such duels seem to be able to fire accurately 
with nearly twice the rapidity of the Germans. 

The most unpleasant experience that I ever under- 
went occurred one day when I was directly in front 
21 321 



APPENDIX 

of and under a French battery and it suddenly and 
unexpectedly fired about forty rounds in thirty 
seconds over my head. These discharges produced a 
great psychological effect and were much more dis- 
concerting than any arrival of enemy's shells. 

I have never observed any "short burst," or shells 
bursting in guns. I should judge that this accident 
happens very rarely, with the French, at least. 

At the beginning of the war, the French carried 
shells and shrapnel in about equal numbers. The 
shells explode with the time-fuse exactly as do shrap- 
nel. From several sources I was told that they were 
loaded with the new explosive which had been intro- 
duced only about three months before the beginning 
of hostilities. As the war progresses the French tend 
to use more and more of these explosive shells, which 
are used against infantry in the same way as are 
shrapnel. The only difference seems to be that they 
are made to burst a little lower. Their effect is very 
terrible. A heavy bursting charge is employed, and 
although the fragments are small they fly with such 
force that they make fatal wounds and even cut into 
the wood of rifle stocks. I observed the body of one 
German whose back had been pierced with about forty 
small particles of a shell which had burst close to him. 
These particles were as evenly spread as the charge of 
a shotgun. German wounded and captured Germans 

322 



APPENDIX 

have told me that this French shell-fire was so hellish 
that no man escaped except by a miracle. The 
French infantry have a great affection for their "75," 
and their confidence is always very greatly increased 
by its presence. Their spirits immediately rise when 
they hear it behind them. The French field artil- 
lery seem to have no favorite range but readily fire 
at any range. On the one hand a gun is sometimes 
taken into the trenches, and on the other hand I once 
observed a battery begin firing at 5300 meters and go 
to 5600 meters. One frequently sees French batteries 
of two and three guns and groups of eight or nine guns, 
lost guns not having been promptly replaced. I once 
saw a battery of two guns, the other two having been 
completely destroyed by direct fire the previous week. 
The heaviest piece that I saw at the front with the 
French was a 6-in. howitzer. The Germans use all 
sizes up to 12-in. in field operations, the latter being 
of Austrian construction. I have never discovered 
any conclusive evidence that Germany possesses 42- 
centimeter guns. 

In my observations, when infantry charge infantry 
in battle movement, the majority of the casualties are 
caused by artillery. I have several times observed 
fields of dead infantrymen killed in an advance against 
infantry, where 90% of the dead had been killed by 
shrapnel. In my experience the Germans never use 

323 



APPENDIX 

anything except shrapnel against infantry in the open. 
Shrapnel wounds are very ugly, being big ragged holes 
which usually become infected. 

On the battlefields I have observed, very few Ger- 
man shrapnel have failed to burst in the air. In one 
field about a half mile square, where shrapnel cases 
were strewn about [I counted about forty or fifty], 
I observed only four craters. The French often say 
that the German shrapnel burst too high. 

The German field artillery frequently place their 
caissons at a distance of two hundred yards behind 
the guns, there being no limbers or caissons with the 
guns. The ammunition is brought up by hand, each 
man carrying six shells in baskets holding three each. 
The caissons are usually in less numbers than the 
guns, the^e being two caissons behind four guns, or 
one caisson behind two guns. 

In examining abandoned German ammunition, I 
have found shells bearing all dates from 1903 to 
1914. 

On no occasion have I seen observation ladders used 
by the French field artillery. This is probably due to 
the fact that, in general, their artillery is at so great 
a distance behind the scene of operations. 

Shells bigger than 3-in. when used in field operations 
seldom do any damage, but have a tremendous 
moral effect even on veteran troops. The disconcert- 

324 



APPENDIX 

ing effect of heavy shells exploding in the ground is 
very widely recognized at the front. The fire of 
big howitzers is, as a rule, very inaccurate. When 
one of these shells hits a building or a paved street its 
effect is considerable; when they burst in soft ground 
they are not dangerous. Most of the battlefields of 
France are on muddy fields, in which the 6-in. shells 
make a crater about forty feet in circumference and 
five or six feet deep. Their effect is chiefly upward 
and casualties are so rare as to be considered freaks. 
Mud is, however, thrown over the whole neighborhood. 
The bursting of the 12-in. shells is a very impressive 
sight — I saw two burst. (My authority for their 
caliber was a major of French artillery with whom I 
was standing at the time.) They burst at a distance 
of about 600 yards from us, one in an open field and the 
other in a small French village. The concussion was 
very heavy and even at 600 yards was felt in the feet. 
In the first case the air was filled with flying mud to a 
height of several hundred feet and there was a cloud 
of greasy black smoke about as large as a city block. 
The resultant crater was about one hundred feet in cir- 
cumference, the ground being particularly soft. The 
second shell produced the same sensations, made the 
.same sort of crater, and destroyed four or five small 
French brick and stone houses. 

The largest German howitzers which are in the field 
325 



APPENDIX 

were, in my personal experience, used only to bombard 
towns and villages. 

INFANTRY 

My observations lead me to think that the most 
important qualifications for the infantry soldier are 
three, viz : to be able to dig, to be able to hide, and to 
be able to shoot. At the beginning of the war the 
French had paid very little attention to any of these 
things. Their men were dressed in a uniform so 
conspicuous that hiding was impossible. The only 
shooting that they had ever done was gallery shooting 
at a range of about forty yards and they were singu- 
larly poor even at this. Judging by practical results, 
they had very few theories and no practice in the 
matter of digging trenches. The trenches which 
they made in the early weeks of the war were straight 
grooves in the ground with the earth thrown up in a 
haphazard manner on either or both sides. Their 
early defeats were due to the unexpected invasion 
through Belgium, and to their unpreparedness in the 
three essentials mentioned above. 

The German infantry also shoot poorly from an 
American standpoint, but do better than the French. 
Their uniform is the most nearly perfect of any of the 
armies in the war, and the Germans, are virtually 

326 



APPENDIX 

invisible at short range if they are not moving. 
Their helmet is easily the best headgear in the matter 
of invisibility. It sets tightly on the head, and owing 
to its shape virtually never casts a shadow. The 
Germans have been from the beginning very accom- 
plished trench diggers and have had elaborate theories 
as to the construction of trenches and much practice 
in making them. 

The British are the only troops in the war who shoot 
with any degree of excellence. Their shooting does 
not approach in accuracy that of our own army, but is 
so superior to the Germans that a British battalion of 
I ioo men usually has a firing effect equal to that of a 
German regiment of nearly 3000. On the gray-green 
backgrounds of Europe the British khaki is not 
conspicuous, but at the same time it is certainly 
visible. The British hat is the most conspicuous head- 
gear in the war, since its rim casts a heavy black 
shadow, and its flat top shows white in sunlight. The 
heads of the British in the trenches stand out very 
distinctly. 

In my experience the machine-gun is the most effec- 
tive infantry weapon. Personally, I should inter- 
pret this not as praise for machine-guns, but as a 
criticism of the poor shooting of all the infantry en- 
gaged. The French have comparatively few machine- 
guns. 

327 



APPENDIX 

Since November, the French have had troops of all 
categories on the firing-line, and I should judge by this 
that since November, if not earlier, the French have 
had all their available men in service. Among my 
personal acquaintances in France, I know no man 
liable for service who has not been in the army from 
that date onward. The men who for physical reasons 
were earlier refused are now being quite generally 
accepted as volunteers and are put to office work or 
similar occupations. I have seen great numbers of 
wounded Territorials in France, and many Territorial 
prisoners in the prison camps in Germany. When I 
visited the prison camp at Zossen (near Berlin) where 
there are said to be 20,000 French prisoners, a large 
percentage (perhaps as much as 50 per cent.) of the 
prisoners I saw were Territorials. 

The Germans have very well-developed and well- 
organized systems of relays for their men at the 
front. The infantry stay in the trenches for about a 
month at a time and are then given a vacation, usu- 
ally being sent home to their garrison town. Their 
cavalry serve ten days at the front and are then sent 
a day's march to the rear for a ten-days' rest. Their 
artillerymen get no vacation, their lives being con- 
sidered easy enough. 

I saw no evidence of any well-organized system of 
vacations among either the French or British and I 

328 



APPENDIX 

knew many isolated cases where personal friends of 
mine, both officers and enlisted men, have been at the 
front continuously since the beginning of the war. I 
am fairly certain that the British enlisted man has had 
no vacation since the beginning of the war, other than 
relaying near the front. 

I would mention again, in order to emphasize the 
statement, that all my observations have led me to 
believe that the essentials of military preparedness are, 
first of all, a rapid mobilization, without this every- 
thing else is useless. By "rapid" I mean a mobiliza- 
tion of at least half a million men or upward in not 
more than ten days. After this in importance comes 
the ability to hide, to dig, and to shoot. To hide is 
impossible when wearing a uniform as conspicuous 
as the French, which might be called maximum, and 
has, I should estimate, been the cause of from three to 
four hundred thousand extra casualties 

The bayonet has been much used in this war and 
I have viewed personally a number of battlefields on 
which the action was decided with cold steel. It is 
my impression that European officers have maintained 
their faith in the bayonet as a weapon and some of 
them may even have become more than ever con- 
vinced of its worth. This is very distinctly the case 
with the French and the Austrians. The Germans 
are the only people whom I have observed to show any 

329 



APPENDIX 

preference for shooting as against cutting when in close 
action. There is no doubt that the French command- 
er's idea is to win the ultimate decision with the 
bayonet. Europeans in general seem to prefer cutting 
and. stabbing to shooting. For them, "fight" seems 
to mean stabbing somebody. Their psychology is 
directly opposed to ours, for I think most American 
soldiers prefer shooting to cutting. The Europeans 
do not seem to have the taste for shooting, or the 
ability or wish to shoot well. It is difficult or even 
impossible to teach many of them to shoot with any 
degree of effectiveness. 

In spite of the degree to which the bayonet has been 
used in Europe and the number of actions which I have 
seen won by its use, I am strongly convinced that 
the bayonet is not a practical weapon, and that the 
only just grounds for its employment are to be found 
in psychological reasons. I have not actually seen 
bayonet combats but have studied the battlefields 
soon after the conflicts and have talked with troops 
who had taken part in them, both French wounded 
and German prisoners. I remember particularly the 
scenes of three bayonet fights on a considerable scale. 
The first took place near Fere Champenoise on 
September 8th ; the second near Sezanne on September 
9th; the third near Lassigny about October 15th. In 
each case the men had thrown all science to the wind 

330 



APPENDIX 

and fought wildly and savagely hand to hand. They 
were probably less effective than a Philippine boloman. 
Most of the casualties had been bayoneted through 
the neck, face, and skull, the men having lunged 
savagely for the face just like a boxer who has lost 
his temper. In the first-mentioned place I saw a 
Frenchman and a German lying side by side, both 
dead, and each transfixed by the other's bayonet, 
showing that they had rushed upon each other madly 
without the least thought of science or defense. It 
would seem to me that an infantryman with a short 
and handy rifle like our new Springfield could fill his 
magazine just before the enemy's charge arrived and 
"stop" four or five men armed with bayonets or any 
other edged weapon. I see no more reason for oppos- 
ing bayonet with bayonet than for opposing a bolo 
with a bolo. The same reasoning would apply to 
lances and sabers, which are universally carried and 
certainly have been used to some extent. It is an 
interesting fact that in fights between cavalry patrols, 
every such affair which came to my personal knowl- 
edge had been decided by shooting and by nothing else, 
although the teaching of the men is to close in and use 
the lance and saber. The Germans alone when in 
close action have shown a tendency to do more or less 
shooting. In the first mentioned of the above fights, 
the Germans were virtually all killed by bayonet 

331 



APPENDIX 

wounds, whereas perhaps 50 per cent, of the 
French dead whom I examined showed gunshot 
wounds. 

The French tactical unit is the battalion of 1000 
men, divided into four companies, nominally of 250 
men each but with an effective battle strength of 
slightly over 200. These companies are commanded 
by a captain with four or five lieutenants under him. 
Two of these lieutenants are regular officers and the 
other two or three are reserve officers. Each platoon 
is commanded by a lieutenant and a sergeant. An 
infantry brigade in the French army is made up 
of six battalions. In case of heavy casualties the 
number of battalions is reduced, the idea being to keep 
battalions as near normal strength as possible. Thus 
if the regiment loses 30 per cent, it is reduced from a 
regiment of three battalions to a regiment of two bat- 
talions, and if it loses 60 or 70 per cent, it is reduced to 
a regiment of one battalion. 

The French, German, Russian, Austrian, and Hun- 
garian infantry are all armed with long, heavy, 
and ill-balanced rifles carrying detachable bayonets. 
These rifles are very poorly sighted in comparison 
with our new Springfield. It would be very difficult 
or impossible to do good shooting with them, as 
measured from an American standpoint. In my per- 
sonal experience there have been numberless cases 

332 



APPENDIX 

where dispatch bearers, automobiles, scouts, pickets, 
and patrols were exposed at very short range to the 
fire of bodies of French or German troops without any- 
casual ties whatsoever occurring. 

The one idea of the German infantry seems to be 
to shoot as much and as rapidly as possible. I have 
several times observed where German infantry have 
taken up a position in the open, and fired 120 rounds 
a man, more or less, as a matter of course. 

I have nowhere observed the use of any semi-auto- 
matic rifles, nor of either silencers or special sights for 
sharpshooters. 

TRENCHES AND CONCEALMENT 

In October I was in the neighborhood of Lassigny 
and Roye where heavy fighting was and had been going 
on. There was a little village called Erches to the 
northwest of these places. Here were the French 
advance trenches. I was in this village during the 
height of operations and was told that we were then 
only 150 or 200 yards from the German trenches. 
Standing behind a house corner in this village of 
Erches, I could see nothing unusual in any direction. 
I could see no signs of French or German activity 
nor of life of any kind, although the French infantry 
trenches extended to our right and left and the Ger- 

333 



APPENDIX 

mans were directly in front of us. The landscape 
which spread away in all directions looked perfectly 
normal and unbroken except for a few shell craters. 
The only manifestations of activity were the distant 
rumbling of guns, and the shrapnel bursting over our 
heads. Although I stayed there for more than an 
hour, the only Frenchmen I saw were a few who joined 
me behind the house ; they came from trenches hidden 
within it, or from an underground trench, the opening 
of which was behind the house. I recount this to 
accent the concealment of all troops in this war. 
Trenches are made to resemble the landscape in which 
they are placed. If they are in a brown mowed field, 
hay is scattered over all fresh earth, and if they are 
made in pasture land all the earth is carefully carried 
away or is spread out and sodded over. 

CAVALRY 

The Austrian cavalry unit is the division, which is 
accompanied by the horse artillery in considerable 
strength. They are not accompanied by cyclists or 
armored automobiles. 

During the first six months of the war, at least, 
in the Austrian, Hungarian, British, and French 
armies no newspaper or war correspondents were 
allowed to view the actual operations on any condi- 

334 



APPENDIX 

tion whatsoever. No press representative saw any 
battle with the Austrian, Hungarian, British, or 
French armies, with one single exception which took 
place in France, when one day during September 
certain press representatives managed to see the bom- 
bardment along the Aisne. I make this statement with 
the full knowledge that many correspondents state 
they have seen battle actions. I have been able to 
investigate such statements on numerous occasions, 
and invariably found them to be fabrications, usually 
without even a foundation of truth. Reporters fre- 
quently left the intrenched camp at Paris, were 
arrested before traveling any great distance, and con- 
fined for days and weeks. They then returned to the 
city and told hair-raising stories of their experiences 
at the front. 

The only war news published in France, England, 
Austria, and Hungary, is that of the official com- 
muniques, which usually suppress all essentials, mini- 
mize or omit all reverses, and convert all drawn 
actions or slight gains into victories. 

The Austrian and Hungarian horse artillery were in 
such close relation with the cavalry that their support 
was very good. In fact, the artillery get into position 
as quickly as the cavalry. The chief function which 
cavalry have performed successfully in this war has 
been that of reconnoissance. The French and German 

335 



APPENDIX 

armies use aeroplanes and cavalry patrols as their 
principal means of reconnoissance ; the latter scout 
in parties of from six to fifteen men commanded by an 
officer. The British do the same work with two motor- 
cycle riders. The transmission of dispatches by 
cavalry has become virtually nil in France because 
of the extensive use for this purpose of telephones, 
automobiles, and motor-cycles. It is very doubtful, 
however, if automobiles and motor-cycles could suc- 
cessfully be used for dispatch-bearing and reconnois- 
sance in any country except France. On the Russian 
frontier the poorness and scarcity of roads make the 
use of automobiles difficult and the use of wheels and 
motor-cycles impossible. It would, therefore, seem 
that for reconnoissance and dispatch-bearing, cavalry 
will usually be the means employed. 

Cavalry have to a certain extent been used as re- 
serves. They were thus first used by the British. In 
recent months I have often seen large French cavalry 
reserves. At such times they are, in effect, mounted 
infantry, so that reinforcements may be transferred a 
greater distance in a shorter time. My personal ob- 
servations have led me to believe that aside from their 
uses in reconnoissance, the principal value of cavalry 
is as mounted infantry held in reserve. When fight- 
ing, cavalry must dismount. Early in the war there 
were occasions when cavalry fought while mounted, 

336 



APPENDIX 

and whether against artillery, infantry, or other 
cavalry, the chief result was the killing of nearly all 
the horses. 

In the Austrian, Hungarian, and French armies 
many cavalry regiments have been converted into 
infantry. I do not think that this is chiefly due to lack 
of horses but to the fact that the opportunity for 
fighting while mounted no longer exists. 

ENGINEERING 

The only work which I observed to be done entirely 
and solely by engineers was the construction of bridges, 
of which they have had to build a great number. 
I was impressed by the fact that many of these bridges 
were quite original in conception. They are nearly 
always intelligent makeshifts which might truly be 
called inventions. 

At Pont-Ste.-Maxence, a bridge capable of support- 
ing the heaviest traffic was constructed in a few hours. 
Big canal boats which were lying idle in the neigh- 
borhood were requisitioned and anchored side by side, 
touching each other. Their decks were made flush, 
each with the other, by the shifting of ballast, and 
when this had been accomplished a roadway was laid 
across them. This bridge was so satisfactory that it 
has not yet been replaced by a permanent structure. 
22 337 



APPENDIX 

Road building was largely carried on among the 
French by infantry, and it was my experience that 
trench building was exclusively done by the infantry 
as it was found necessary. The positions and traces 
of trenches were laid out by infantry officers. This 
latter conclusion is, however, based on three or four 
observations only. 

SUPPLIES 

In the French army the reserve small arms ammuni- 
tion is kept behind the battle-line just out of reach of 
shell-fire. There are ammunition train regiments just 
as there are infantry or cavalry regiments. Each 
such regiment is composed of eighty odd ammunition 
wagons and some forage wagons. Two regiments 
generally move together, thus forming an ammunition 
brigade. These wagons are parked parallel to the line 
of battle. Supply columns are always parked ver- 
tically to the line of battle. In the Battle of the Marne 
I observed an ammunition brigade about every twenty 
kilometers. Thus on September nth, there were 
brigades at Rebais (7th and 10th Regiments), at 
Montmirail (17th and 29th), and at Champaubert. 
The supplies, chiefly beef and bread, are brought up 
from the rear and advance directly toward the battle- 
line in long horse-drawn wagon trains, or in Paris auto* 

338 



APPENDIX 

busses. When near the front, small numbers of wagons 
go up as far as they dare and supplies are distributed 
directly to the troops, often while they are under long- 
range shell-fire. 

MOTOR TRANSPORT 

In the matter of motor transport, the practice with 
the French and British has become well denned. The 
best type of truck is one of medium weight, and of 
the best construction obtainable. It should be em- 
phasized that medium-priced or inexpensive trucks 
are undesirable. It is very distinctly the opinion 
of French and British transport officers that it is 
better to have too few trucks, all of which are reliable, 
than to take "any old truck" and have it break down 
at critical moments during operation. Inferior trucks 
break down frequently, and break down at critical 
moments with singular regularity. 

In the British army, trucks work in units of about 
ten, each such unit being commanded by an officer 
who travels in a fast automobile. Protection, when 
necessary, is temporarily assigned to the unit, nearly 
always in the shape of armored motor cars. The 
trucks are heavily manned, having from three to six 
men per truck. Every man is armed with a rifle, but 
no other arms are carried as an integral part of the 

339 



APPENDIX 

unit. Such motor transport units are not often 
captured or destroyed since they seldom come in 
touch with anything but the enemy's cavalry which, 
as a rule, prefers to leave them strictly alone, as a 
train of motor trucks has good defensive ability and 
none of the vulnerability of horse-drawn wagons. In 
the rare cases when actions have taken place, motor 
trucks have become moving forts, which continue on 
their way at a rate of twenty or twenty-five miles an 
hour, while from each one three or four well-protected 
riflemen keep up a steady fire. 

The type of automobile most desirable for army 
use has become well-defined. The practice in this 
regard is the same in the French, British, German, 
Austrian, and Hungarian armies. On a powerful 
chassis, with an engine of at least 50-horse-power, is 
mounted a ver}r light body, of the "pony tonneau" 
type, with room for two men in front and two behind. 
The equipment consists of a folding top, leather or 
isinglass wind-shield, powerful head-lights, the noisiest 
horn obtainable, and racks to carry as much extra 
gasoline as possible. In service these automobiles 
have big racks full of gasoline-cans carried on the 
running boards and at the rear and, in addition, there 
are often necklaces of two-gallon cans strung wherever 
possible. In virtually all the armies gasoline is 
served out in small cans containing about two gallons 

340 



APPENDIX 

each, which are easily handled and quickly stored. 
One or two may be put in any odd space which is not 
otherwise in use. This method is very effective and 
is one of the most important developments in military 
automobile practice. In none of the armies are cars 
used which vary greatly from the type above men- 
tioned, except through necessity. In general, heavy 
cars and runabouts give very inferior service. It is 
the general custom for the chauffeur and an orderly 
to ride on the front seat, and one or two officers behind. 
The more speed the machine develops the better. It 
is not uncommon to see staff officers or generals 
traveling over the French roads at a speed of one 
hundred kilometers an hour. There is quite a well- 
defined tendency to have as drivers men who are well 
above the average. In the French army these men 
are usually sergeants or lieutenants; in the Austrian 
army many of them are lieutenants. 

Corps and army commanders usually have big, 
heavy limousines, with electric lighting, which they 
can, when necessary, use as offices, or as head- 
quarters. 

SIGNAL CORPS 

The Germans use telephones very extensively and 
apparently in connection with all arms of the service. 

341 



APPENDIX 

Their wires are very thin and are similar to small 
piano wires. I saw no copper wire used by them. 
The wire is strung on poles about nine feet high. These 
poles are very carefully made of wood and are only 
about an inch in diameter. Every second pole is 
guyed with a wire and braced with a pole. The poles 
are painted in black and white stripes to make them 
conspicuous and to prevent people from running 
over them. The German practice is to lay these 
wires and abandon them when they are no longer 
needed. The British, on the contrary, make it a 
point of honor to recover all their poles and wire. 
In the retreat from Mons their signal corps had such 
heavy losses in attempting to do this that they were 
seriously hampered by lack of personnel. 

PHYSIQUE 

The German soldiers and officers have a physique 
unapproached by any troops which I saw, except the 
Swiss. Their average height and weight is very much 
above all the others, except the Russians. The 
Russians are as large as the Germans but do not 
approach them in activity and quality. The French, 
although small and light, are wiry and have very 
good stamina, especially in the matter of marching. 
The Austrians are of medium size, most of them being 

342 



APPENDIX 

stockily built. The Hungarians are of medium height, 
well-knit, possessed of good stamina, and are in every 
way physically fitted to be fine soldiers. Their in- 
fantry have very high physical qualities, probably 
being as effective in modern warfare as the heavy 
Germans. 

MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS 

I found intelligent people in Germany very broad- 
minded about military matters. They were pretty 
well agreed that General Joffre is the only general 
produced so far by the war who would rank in history 
as a great captain, and while they maintained that 
the German officers as a class were superior to all 
others, they conceded that the best troops which 
have so far taken part in the war were the British 
regulars who represented England in the early weeks 
of the war and retreated from Charleroi through Mons, 
St. Quentin, and Compiegne to the southeast of Paris. 

On many different occasions I saw Russian prisoners 
in Germany and Austria-Hungary. They impressed 
me as being of a low order of intelligence. They fight 
well on the defense. When they are put in a position 
and told to stay there, they are very difficult to drive 
back and show the highest order of courage. When 
they move or advance they become less reliable, 

343 



APPENDIX 

The Hungarians have a very keen fighting instinct 
and are excellent infantrymen. 

The Germans have a dogged courage and expose 
themselves with bravery and enthusiasm in any under- 
taking. When they are once started, they are difficult 
to stop. On an advance, I should say that a 50 per 
cent, loss is necessary to make them hesitate, and on 
the defense I saw at least one case where they were put 
out of action to the last man without giving ground. 

The French are brave in a more spectacular way. 
They are better winners than the Germans and worse 
losers. Their temperament leads them to push home 
a success with more enthusiasm than the Germans; 
whereas, in defeat, they are less reliable. 

The fighting qualities of the British are much 
higher than those of any other nation, when, as in the 
case of the British regulars, they have had sufficient 
training to teach them the technique of war. They 
are calm and usually cheerful under the most adverse 
circumstances. They do not lose control of them- 
selves either in victory or defeat. The Germans say 
they fight best of all when they are hopelessly de- 
feated or surrounded. 

I have seen no body of officers which can compare 
in quality with those of our army who are graduates 
of West Point. However, we have fewer of these than 
Germany has generals. 

344 



APPENDIX 

It is just as strongly my opinion that the American 
infantryman as a type is correspondingly superior. 
I believe he can undoubtedly out-shoot, out- think, 
out-" hike, " and out-game the line soldier of any 
other country I have seen. Here again, we have so 
few of him that, whereas there are more than six 
hundred well-trained army-corps engaged in this war, 
we have less than one. 

AUTHOR'S NOTE 

I have received a letter from Mr. Herrick in which 
he expresses the opinion that I was too severe on the 
diplomatic corps for leaving Paris when the Germans 
threatened the city and the French government moved 
to Bordeaux. He states that it was the duty of the 
diplomatic corps to go with the government and that 
it was according to diplomatic precedent. His own 
decision to remain in Paris was the result of a special 
permission from the United States government, author- 
izing him to use his own discretion. Under the cir- 
cumstances he thought it best to remain in Paris, and 
to be represented at Bordeaux by Mr. Garret, with 
whom he was able to communicate daily. With 
Mr. Garret he sent a number of army officers and 
secretaries. 



345 



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